Paramedic wants to help people on their worst days

A paramedic who has worked for the ambulance service for nine years said he does his job to "improve the worst days of people's lives".

Ben Adam works for St John Ambulance and Rescue Service in Guernsey and said it was a "great career" and "one of those jobs that you go into not really knowing what you're going to be doing".

Paramedics, social workers and midwives are just some of the people who make up the island's healthcare system.

They have shared what it is like to work in the health sector in Guernsey.

Adam said: "[Being a paramedic] is a vocation and it's one of those jobs that you go into not really knowing what you're going to be doing.

"Every day is so vastly different that you really don't know what you're going to come up against."

He said on average he would do about 19 jobs a day.

"That doesn't mean they're spread evenly across your 24 hours, but it can also go up to 36 [which] I think is our highest call volume at the moment, you can get 10 jobs come in within an hour."

Charlotte Carr has been a social worker for 25 years and works in the physical disabilities team.

She works with people who have had life-changing injuries or neurological conditions.

"It can be hard work and it can be quite sad because you're seeing people younger who've sometimes got a very difficult life-changing prognosis," she said.

"But it's a wonderful environment to be in when you're all working together and I think each member of the team has a different skill so I certainly couldn't do it by myself."

She said every day was different.

"In small communities like Guernsey, you see the difference people around make to one another."

Liz Adeleye has been a nurse for eight years, and started her working career in London before moving to Guernsey two years ago.

She works in the intensive care department and said an important part of being a nurse was being able to listen.

"Being compassionate with people and communicating with them [is important], taking them through the steps of the journey of their care to make things easier for them in the long run," she said.

"I do work in the intensive care so we do get really sick patients and it was nice to see people actually thrive and get better and be able to actually leave the department and even get rehab and do better and be able to come back."

René Bisson is part of the catering team of more than 70 people which makes meals for about 2,000 people a day.

They makes meals for patients in the hospital, care homes, day centres as well as Meals on Wheels.

"We cater for diabetics and dairy-free, gluten-free, low-potassium meals, low-fiber meals.

"It's a good camaraderie, it's a good banter, it's a very interesting place to work. A lot of different people, different nationalities as well.

"A whole different scope of people with different experiences."

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