hello, tonal whiplash,
Aug. 23rd, 2024 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessCardiac Arrest - 3.3 The Practice of Privacy
In this episode, the show couldn’t make up its mind if it was a hard-hitting drama or a live action Viz cartoon. Apart from the continuing storylines, there was a particular focus on the corrosive effects of private healthcare. Turner was smarming to potential private patients (I managed somehow not to have a choking fit as he said how terrible a waiting list of three months was and had they considered going private?), so he couldn’t possibly help Andrew fit a pacemaker, even though Andrew said that he’d only seen it done once. It didn’t go well, and he had to call Claire in on her night off, so she’d been drinking, although she still managed to do the procedure successfully.
Perhaps it was a resurgence of anti-consultant feeling, or perhaps that his chat-up line was ‘My wife was busy so I thought I hadn’t seen Claire for a while,’ but Claire dumped Adrian the next morning. Whose car was then pronged by irresponsible Raj, who took Docherty’s counsel to scarper. (Did Docherty have to literally say that Adrian associated his car with his penis? No, he did not. But he did.)
Claire and Andrew fumed about Turner, the nice consultants sided with them. Andrew’s helpless position was revealed when he tried to raise a concern officially…to his line manager, Turner.
Caroline informed Andrew that there was a possibility they might be HIV positive. He was shirty with her and his wife (oh look, who did he remind me of then? Adrian.) James was still getting pressure from colleagues and blew up in front of a pressing reporter, putting him under more pressure. Oh, and the senior nurse was picking up some slack and got jabbed by a needle. I think the patient might have had hepatitis, so we had another echoing storyline about infections.
Adrian found out that Raj was responsible for crashing his car and as punishment insisted he spend his two days of leave as a private locum, which turned out to be almost like a holiday, until a patient (the Brigadier of a few episodes ago) had a medical emergency and Adrian was in the middle of an operation, so Raj had to supervise sending the Brigadier back down to the NHS so that he could receive timely care. Raj and James were back to pranking each other for lolz, which saw the re-emergence of James the Lad persona, which felt like a backward step.
Speaking of, in the midst of all this, Evil Hospital Manager No. 2 was back in his office. I thought he had gone! He was trying to minimise the hospital’s liability as the nurse waited to see if she’d been infected. She and Doherty were probably the most sympathetic characters all episode, as she was loyal to the colleague who had left the needle where it could jab her and Doherty backed her up. Much good it did them.
Claire got in trouble with the Evil Hospital Manager for having treated a patient under the influence, but was in devil-may-care mode, and also knew that any investigation would get Turner into trouble. Which it sort of did, but as his position as chair of the consultants had protected him from an audit that ought to have captured how much he was ditching his NHS work for his private work, didn’t really, he and the manager were too close to each other, and suspected Claire of having dobbed herself in via anonymous letter. (Which is probably what happened.) It looked as though Turner would get away with it until Docherty casually told him he was going to try for his consultant’s chair position.
Claire’s latest suspension was rescinded. I thought that DeVries really needed a haircut.
Caroline had been trying to get Andrew to be supportive and, really, be honest with his wife and choose her. Instead, he was pretty cold, trying to pressurise her to get tested fast. There were scientific reasons for this, but really he wanted to avoid telling his wife he’d cheated on her and might have infected her with HIV. Realising this, Caroline gave him an ultimatum – tell his wife and she’d tell him her results (although if she did test positive, she’d probably have to inform the hospital and the rumour mill would inform him) – to which Andrew seemed to respond by trying to tell his wife about the cheating etc OVER A PAYPHONE.
In this episode, the show couldn’t make up its mind if it was a hard-hitting drama or a live action Viz cartoon. Apart from the continuing storylines, there was a particular focus on the corrosive effects of private healthcare. Turner was smarming to potential private patients (I managed somehow not to have a choking fit as he said how terrible a waiting list of three months was and had they considered going private?), so he couldn’t possibly help Andrew fit a pacemaker, even though Andrew said that he’d only seen it done once. It didn’t go well, and he had to call Claire in on her night off, so she’d been drinking, although she still managed to do the procedure successfully.
Perhaps it was a resurgence of anti-consultant feeling, or perhaps that his chat-up line was ‘My wife was busy so I thought I hadn’t seen Claire for a while,’ but Claire dumped Adrian the next morning. Whose car was then pronged by irresponsible Raj, who took Docherty’s counsel to scarper. (Did Docherty have to literally say that Adrian associated his car with his penis? No, he did not. But he did.)
Claire and Andrew fumed about Turner, the nice consultants sided with them. Andrew’s helpless position was revealed when he tried to raise a concern officially…to his line manager, Turner.
Caroline informed Andrew that there was a possibility they might be HIV positive. He was shirty with her and his wife (oh look, who did he remind me of then? Adrian.) James was still getting pressure from colleagues and blew up in front of a pressing reporter, putting him under more pressure. Oh, and the senior nurse was picking up some slack and got jabbed by a needle. I think the patient might have had hepatitis, so we had another echoing storyline about infections.
Adrian found out that Raj was responsible for crashing his car and as punishment insisted he spend his two days of leave as a private locum, which turned out to be almost like a holiday, until a patient (the Brigadier of a few episodes ago) had a medical emergency and Adrian was in the middle of an operation, so Raj had to supervise sending the Brigadier back down to the NHS so that he could receive timely care. Raj and James were back to pranking each other for lolz, which saw the re-emergence of James the Lad persona, which felt like a backward step.
Speaking of, in the midst of all this, Evil Hospital Manager No. 2 was back in his office. I thought he had gone! He was trying to minimise the hospital’s liability as the nurse waited to see if she’d been infected. She and Doherty were probably the most sympathetic characters all episode, as she was loyal to the colleague who had left the needle where it could jab her and Doherty backed her up. Much good it did them.
Claire got in trouble with the Evil Hospital Manager for having treated a patient under the influence, but was in devil-may-care mode, and also knew that any investigation would get Turner into trouble. Which it sort of did, but as his position as chair of the consultants had protected him from an audit that ought to have captured how much he was ditching his NHS work for his private work, didn’t really, he and the manager were too close to each other, and suspected Claire of having dobbed herself in via anonymous letter. (Which is probably what happened.) It looked as though Turner would get away with it until Docherty casually told him he was going to try for his consultant’s chair position.
Claire’s latest suspension was rescinded. I thought that DeVries really needed a haircut.
Caroline had been trying to get Andrew to be supportive and, really, be honest with his wife and choose her. Instead, he was pretty cold, trying to pressurise her to get tested fast. There were scientific reasons for this, but really he wanted to avoid telling his wife he’d cheated on her and might have infected her with HIV. Realising this, Caroline gave him an ultimatum – tell his wife and she’d tell him her results (although if she did test positive, she’d probably have to inform the hospital and the rumour mill would inform him) – to which Andrew seemed to respond by trying to tell his wife about the cheating etc OVER A PAYPHONE.
