Playing doctors and nurses

Press, 8 August 1981, Page 13

Playing doctors and nurses

Review

Ken Strongman

Thursday's . "Mainland Touch” served up some provocative fare. There was the Christchurch City Council ag nising over its attitudes towards the tour. Mr Hay’s head and shoulders were dragged down either by the weightiness of the matter or by the weight of his chain of office. Not unlike the Government. the council managed the best of both worlds by stating that they are against the tour, but restricting their protest to a very mild affair. There are three new buildings going up in Cashel Street, each of some substance. They seem to be of reasonable design, but is there an over-all plan? This was not made clear. Will they be architecturally coordinated or will it be the usual piecemeal business? In the second half there was an interview with a pleasant visiting professor of medicine. In spite of his pleasantness, it was another example of how much the members of the medical profession take unto themselves. Talk was of various social and psychological problems common in general practices. There are experts in such matters who could be consulted, much as others would consult physicians when they have a medical problem.

Still, it provided a useful link with “Nurse” which followed. However weak, a programme such as this cannot fail, given the world-wide obsession with things medical. We know this programme is medical since, from time to time, those in it wear white coats and mention 150ccs of this and that while their thoughts are mainly on the other. This week. Nurse Mary’ was approaching 40 and toying with the thought of enjoying that return to adolescence knowm as the mid-life crisis. She dealt with this in a day-to-day sense by behaving like everyone else in the hospital; that is. by striding, strolling, bouncing, gliding or shuffling along shiny institutional corridors. Meanwhile sex is simmering constantly in the cauldron of the collective hospital mind, and occasionally bubbling over. Now and again, a patient obtrudes into these important matters with a most inconsiderate insistence on attention. Mary is not good at coping, though. An elderly patient clutches her stomach . 'and groans. Quick as a flash our nurse asks: "Where’s the pain?” There was the statutory emergency: a code three alert (it is set in the United States). Strained faces, mouth to mouth, straight

lines on the oscilloscope (was that a blip?), injections, openmouthed relief and tears squeezed back into their ducts. But it was really all about poor Mary’s coming of age. She soul-searched and her teen-age son (she is conveniently husbandless) did not help.' She solved it all by taking up jogging in the morning and taking up a younger doctor to her bed at night. Yes. I know, but you've got to work in a fictional hospital to make it possible. Even then, you would have to put up with: "Mary. I like your s':'le; it’s as simple as that." It could well be too big a price to pay. The alternative to this hour of shallow, mawkish romanticism is “Charlie’s Angels." the last of the weekly dramas of the great age of chauvinism. What can one say? Perhaps Thursday’s

from 8 until 9 should be the ; quiet hour, a time when the | box does not squawk. But. don't forget to switch ; oh again at 9 for “Yes : Minister” which is consistently amusing. Paul Eddington is perfect as the befuddled but not stupid minister. He is a cleverly contrived character, a funny straight man. It is go-"d to see him with ■ his own series. In a quiet way he was very funny in “The Good Life" but was somehow overshadowed. He is now casting his own shadows.