Bushfire

I never thought bushfire is that close...I've seen some burnt grass n trees on my way to the hospital but never when it's still burning....

Yesterday I was in the operating theatre(OT) in the afternoon..there were 2 OTs(Dr Lee & Dr Rasiah) for O&G and I decided to go to Dr Lee's OT as I saw on the list that he will be performing total abdominal hysterectomy(TAH) which is not done everyday at Angliss..I was with Dr Lee for the first hysteroscopy+dilatation & curettage+polypectomy..after that Dr Lee send me to Dr Rasiah's OT as he has an emergency laparoscopy for an ectopic pregnancy...the surgery took about one hour and while I was in there, the nurses, the anaesthetist talked about bushfire..everyone seems to know someone who has been affected by it..even one of our O&G specialist Dr McCallum has asked Dr Rasiah to cover for him if any of his patients is delivering their babies as Dr McCallum couldn't leave his house because of the bushfire...owhh...I just remember that I'm rosterred to go to Dr McCallum's theatre next Monday, hopefully he would be able to make it by then..

Suddenly one of the nurses in the other OT came to ours telling that some of the staffs had to go home..they just received news about the bushfire n their house might be affected as well...so Dr Lee's theatre need to stop while everything is sorted out..the anaesthetist look up on CFA website (CFA is equivalent to 'bomba' in Malaysia) about the latest updates in bushfire...some roads are cut off and everyone started talking about alternative routes to go home..one of the nurses told me that she might just stay at the hospital for the night rather than getting stuck in traffic since all the road is congested at the moment..

It turns out that both Dr Lee's n Dr Rasiah's major elective surgeries had to be cancelled..as I don't know where I should go in between the surgeries so I just follow wherever Dr Rasiah go..apparently Dr Rasiah also has a patient for TAH that had to be cancelled..As Dr Rasiah started to talk to her, she started crying...Dr Rasiah tried his best to explain the situation to her but she wouldn't listen..this is her second cancellation..the first time was because of bushfire as well...I felt sorry for what happened but there's nothing we could do..people's safety is more important...

In the end, even after cancelling those major surgeries, they still couldn't finish according to the 5pm schedule...I got 5 signatures today(3 for VEs, 1 hysteroscopy and 1 laparoscopy)..I've observed 4 hysteroscopies but they only want 1...

I was coughing all the way while walking from the hospital to the train station because of the smoke...btw, we could even smell the smoke from the hallway at the OT area...that's how close we are!