Today at work I was looking after the men, which is something that I don’t do very often as I am usually with the ladies. One of the patients was being discharged, and once the bed area had been cleaned and the bed remade, another patient arrived with two porters wheeling his bed.

We had to transfer the new patient onto the other bed, which needed a couple of extra staff and a patslide. Just before we did this I introduced myself to the patient and confirmed his name. I asked him how he was and he told me that one of his legs and one of his arms were not working properly. I sympathised with him and told him that we would make sure he was well looked after.

In order to get him onto the other bed we had to line them both up but there was a chair in the way. One of the porters went to move it but bumped it on the corner of the bed. It didn’t touch the patient but I joked with him that we were going to hurt his good leg to even things up a little.

He laughed and said that I might as well, then indicated his head towards his nether regions and said that ‘that didn’t work either’. I of course thought he meant his ahem..privates and blustered that we couldn’t really do much about that side of things. He didn’t. He was pointing at his catheter bag!