When Nina finally went outside for a cigarette, she was surprised at the filthy state of their incoming volunteers. Their scrubs and —worse— their hands were soiled. She couldn’t promise most of them weren’t ill themselves in addition to not being clean.
She herself was in her thirties and wore a borrowed raincoat over her white medical overalls. A stern expression gave her heart-shaped face a hard edge. She paused at the edge of the triage station, frowning, cupping her hands to shield her eyes from the sunlight. She sat down by the side of a trackway where long grass bushed out from the broken fence.
During this lull her surgical assistant emerged into the sunlight about sixty seconds after her, complaining to her about their painful lack of supplies. She smoked her cigarette, which her assistant shared briefly, though it made him cough. She was afraid she was teaching him bad habits.
“How many are they going to kill by transmitting infection?” she asked, thumbing at the new help.
“Let’s just make sure all the serious cases come to us,” he said.
“Wait!” her qualified assistant paused as he prepared to dash off to work again. Nina handed him a small paper packet. “Sterilizing tablets. Do your best to use them sparingly,” she instructed. “It’s the only box we got."
She got to her feet, and wandered a little way down the track toward an alley way. As she walked, she turned the morning's incident over in her mind.
She’d spent time with the injured and looking in on the critical cases. Her new patient had survived the night though he’d required a second surgery in the small hours to staunch the internal bleeding. Nina was so fatigued by then she seemed almost asleep on her feet and she’d been in a dazed rage in the morning, weary with the pointless losses she’d witnessed throughout the night. She’d just snapped...
She knew she should have kept quiet about them, but secrecy wasn’t her way, and this situation was nothing like that simple. It’s been tough all around. They were running short of essential supplies, but the bean-counters wouldn’t get some more shipped in. It wasn’t worth confronting these miserable, desperate wretches at the main branch.
She felt her anger returning. You can’t save everybody. That was one of the first things they drummed into you at the Guardian. But this greed-induced corruption.... this bureaucracy fed on useless red tape like a glutton, even though it was bloated and full… and she felt nothing but keen loss and frustration when they’d been fighting to survive without fresh medical goods. But it was pointless for her to bring a formal charge to the board. She knew the hospital board would take her seriously. But she also knew that the hospital was bound by the rules. The system couldn’t help her.
No, she decided, there was no point. That was not Nina's way. Experience had shown her that morale was better served by encouragement and trust than by an unpredictable temper and scorn. She’d had a good example in the form of her mentor, whose philosophy of morale had been based on trust and tolerance. There had been times when a firm hand had been called for, more than a few more when action had worked better than words.
But she prided herself on her fairness, and knew that she was able to count on her coworkers and volunteers as friends because of it. At the triage station, she’d acted just like a typical Surgeon due to being given stark, regular reminders of her dwindling supplies. There was no point to put the blame on frustration or fatigue. These feelings implied weakness, and Nina could never be weak.
She realized it was more a matter of futility. She’d come into this position with reservations, and each step of the way had confirmed her fears. It was the manner of the administration that was senseless. The dismissive contempt at which the higher-ups viewed those who couldn’t pay, the poor and sick. It made Nina angry to see this, angrier still to have been caught up by the futility, and it had worked on her so insidiously!
Now, outside, around her, the city went by. There was a greater good, a sense of purpose, even here. From now on, she'd have to go easier on their frightened and worried helpers. From the list, she realized they were trained to administer only the most basic first aid. They weren’t doctors. They were a different matter. Unqualified; unalloyed; just there to do the basics until the doctors came. The volunteers did all right… and all these actions, all their tiny contributions did their part to build a CCD culture that would endure until the world ended. That’s what Nina had believed anyway. She felt it was her responsibility to watch over them all...
She halted and saw a lone figure stagger toward her. In slow motion, Nina saw the way pain made him frown, then grimace, then twist his features into an expression she’d thought no human face could make while it was alive. She watched with horrid fascination as he went down.
Nina Siwak hadn’t thought twice about helping the man. She ran over, tossed her cigarette butt into the mud. “Hey!” she called out, approaching him. “Hey, you alright?”
Nina shooed two curious onlookers around them back to their work and went down to Soren’s side. She felt hugely exposed in that alley. She tried to get him some space to relax as she went on her hands and knees, her arms wrapped protectively over Soren’s head. The man convulsed with pain, his head nodded onto the ground, his bleeding hand cradled in the other. She heard him gasping, trying to let his lungs fill.
She breathed slowly, searching her pack deftly feeling tools and supplies by touch the way she’d taped them just so. A painkiller. That might help. She reckoned by now he wasn’t about to retch into her lap. It was hard to tell... but, she was sure he'd regard her with mistrust if she drugged him without checking first.
Her firm hands grabbed him and pulled him up. “You hurt?”
She herself was in her thirties and wore a borrowed raincoat over her white medical overalls. A stern expression gave her heart-shaped face a hard edge. She paused at the edge of the triage station, frowning, cupping her hands to shield her eyes from the sunlight. She sat down by the side of a trackway where long grass bushed out from the broken fence.
During this lull her surgical assistant emerged into the sunlight about sixty seconds after her, complaining to her about their painful lack of supplies. She smoked her cigarette, which her assistant shared briefly, though it made him cough. She was afraid she was teaching him bad habits.
“How many are they going to kill by transmitting infection?” she asked, thumbing at the new help.
“Let’s just make sure all the serious cases come to us,” he said.
“Wait!” her qualified assistant paused as he prepared to dash off to work again. Nina handed him a small paper packet. “Sterilizing tablets. Do your best to use them sparingly,” she instructed. “It’s the only box we got."
She got to her feet, and wandered a little way down the track toward an alley way. As she walked, she turned the morning's incident over in her mind.
She’d spent time with the injured and looking in on the critical cases. Her new patient had survived the night though he’d required a second surgery in the small hours to staunch the internal bleeding. Nina was so fatigued by then she seemed almost asleep on her feet and she’d been in a dazed rage in the morning, weary with the pointless losses she’d witnessed throughout the night. She’d just snapped...
She knew she should have kept quiet about them, but secrecy wasn’t her way, and this situation was nothing like that simple. It’s been tough all around. They were running short of essential supplies, but the bean-counters wouldn’t get some more shipped in. It wasn’t worth confronting these miserable, desperate wretches at the main branch.
She felt her anger returning. You can’t save everybody. That was one of the first things they drummed into you at the Guardian. But this greed-induced corruption.... this bureaucracy fed on useless red tape like a glutton, even though it was bloated and full… and she felt nothing but keen loss and frustration when they’d been fighting to survive without fresh medical goods. But it was pointless for her to bring a formal charge to the board. She knew the hospital board would take her seriously. But she also knew that the hospital was bound by the rules. The system couldn’t help her.
No, she decided, there was no point. That was not Nina's way. Experience had shown her that morale was better served by encouragement and trust than by an unpredictable temper and scorn. She’d had a good example in the form of her mentor, whose philosophy of morale had been based on trust and tolerance. There had been times when a firm hand had been called for, more than a few more when action had worked better than words.
But she prided herself on her fairness, and knew that she was able to count on her coworkers and volunteers as friends because of it. At the triage station, she’d acted just like a typical Surgeon due to being given stark, regular reminders of her dwindling supplies. There was no point to put the blame on frustration or fatigue. These feelings implied weakness, and Nina could never be weak.
She realized it was more a matter of futility. She’d come into this position with reservations, and each step of the way had confirmed her fears. It was the manner of the administration that was senseless. The dismissive contempt at which the higher-ups viewed those who couldn’t pay, the poor and sick. It made Nina angry to see this, angrier still to have been caught up by the futility, and it had worked on her so insidiously!
Now, outside, around her, the city went by. There was a greater good, a sense of purpose, even here. From now on, she'd have to go easier on their frightened and worried helpers. From the list, she realized they were trained to administer only the most basic first aid. They weren’t doctors. They were a different matter. Unqualified; unalloyed; just there to do the basics until the doctors came. The volunteers did all right… and all these actions, all their tiny contributions did their part to build a CCD culture that would endure until the world ended. That’s what Nina had believed anyway. She felt it was her responsibility to watch over them all...
She halted and saw a lone figure stagger toward her. In slow motion, Nina saw the way pain made him frown, then grimace, then twist his features into an expression she’d thought no human face could make while it was alive. She watched with horrid fascination as he went down.
Nina Siwak hadn’t thought twice about helping the man. She ran over, tossed her cigarette butt into the mud. “Hey!” she called out, approaching him. “Hey, you alright?”
Nina shooed two curious onlookers around them back to their work and went down to Soren’s side. She felt hugely exposed in that alley. She tried to get him some space to relax as she went on her hands and knees, her arms wrapped protectively over Soren’s head. The man convulsed with pain, his head nodded onto the ground, his bleeding hand cradled in the other. She heard him gasping, trying to let his lungs fill.
She breathed slowly, searching her pack deftly feeling tools and supplies by touch the way she’d taped them just so. A painkiller. That might help. She reckoned by now he wasn’t about to retch into her lap. It was hard to tell... but, she was sure he'd regard her with mistrust if she drugged him without checking first.
Her firm hands grabbed him and pulled him up. “You hurt?”
Nina