How The Sausage Is Made
Shruti’s husband is at the supermarket, and she can’t escape from work. Eventually, she abandons her cart and heads home.
Adam has been staying with Greg and Emma for over 34 days, but things are not going well. Adam is saving up money for a flat, but he’s not sure if he can do it on his own. He also doesn’t have a date for his tribunal yet. This continues to be a problem for Adam.
It’s a very different environment, with a ridiculous amount of luxuries and only one patient to deal with per nurse. This is a direct juxtaposition to Shruti at the NHS funded hospital, with broken vending machines, unenthusiastic trainees and juggling multiple patients.
Shruti is the only doctor on-call and her trainee, Al, is less than knowledgeable. Even worse, he ends up fainting at the sight of blood. Shruti has come a long way and working the ward has certainly toughened her up. She’s not in the mood to deal with trainees and despite actually testing his knowledge, his constant jokes and quips only work to wind her up and cause her to become more impatient.
There is a really nice moment here though with a patient that mentions Shruti is “a great doctor” and that the NHS are lucky to have her. The thing is, that’s a drop in the well for what’s otherwise an overwhelming amount of stress and impatient, unhappy patients for her to deal with.
Briana is one of the patients at the hospital. Shruti gets a call from the hospital after hours, telling her that there is a lot of blood in her abdomen and that it’s also ruptured. With her life hanging in the balance, Al is tasked with phoning the theatre and Vicky to come in and help, while Shruti is left with doing surgery.
Adam is working hard as he delivers a patient’s baby when things start to go wrong. The midwives are not able to save Kathleen and Adam has to work hard to earn his money.
Adam’s private hospital is not equipped to handle this emergency, given that there’s not enough blood stocked there. So as it happens, the aforementioned new patient showing up at the hospital happens to be Kathleen’s private patient. This really puts into perspective the divide between the rich and poor, which has been at the forefront of this chapter.
Shruti successfully completes her exams, but is still unhappy with Adam. She uses the pretext that she’s tired to avoid him. ..
When Adam shows up at work the next day, the place is a mess and all the staff are distraught. So what’s happened? Well, it turns out after her shift, Shruti emptied her locker. As police show up at her parents’ door, the worst thing has happened – Shruti is dead. ..
The Episode Review
This powerful episode of the series shows the harsh realities of life as a doctor and pays tribute to the amazing work our staff on the NHS achieve. ..
This story is a powerful indictment of the way our society treats nurses. It shows how poorly equipped and unprepared hospitals are to deal with emergencies, and how nonchalantly Shruti moves between patients, saving their lives with little aplomb or grace. This makes the nurses heroes, not the players in this story.
The hospital will likely have to recover from the events that took place in this episode. The visual motif and the undercurrent of drama make it one of the best episodes of 2022 so far. ..
