The sister on that floor is called Bernadine and she is sixty and she has worked there twenty-two years, and she got everybody moved and the floor cleared inside about ninety seconds, and then she came and found me in the sluice and said: “Right. Breathe.”
That is what actually happened. There was no applause. There was a woman of sixty with a mop.
And I went to my meeting, eleven minutes late, and did not say why.
What I did not do.
I did not look at that child’s notes.
I want that written down because it is the only thing in this entire account that I am proud of without qualification.
He was on the system. I could have had his record open in about nine seconds from any terminal in that building, and I would have been able to tell you his birth weight and his blood group and who was at the delivery.
Thirty-one per cent of me wanted to.
And I have access to that system because sick children need me to have it, and the day I use it for anything else is the day the complaint becomes true.
So I did not, and I am going to keep not doing it, and when he is eighteen there will be an audit trail with my staff number nowhere on it.
