Lawrence sipped at his strong coffee, he drank it hot to avoid the horrible bitter taste. He wasn’t a coffee guy, but it helped him adjust to night shift. Nightmares of the virus and an overwhelmed hospital had plagued his sleep. His mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner, she argued with her sister on video chat. His father napped in a lounge chair. The Vietnamese show he had been watching blared loudly. He had always meant to move out after he finished University, but they were getting elderly and he couldn’t bring himself to leave them.
Mother had refused to let him stay in a hotel. Easier if he called and told them after. He had bought them supplies on his way home and had hidden it in his room. With that, they wouldn’t need to go to the supermarket for a couple of weeks. He’d packed his car and booked a hotel for the night. His parents wouldn’t be happy, but it was better this way.
He moved to the lounge and switched over to the news. He wanted an idea of what had happened over the day and what to expect at the hospital. The media covered outbreaks in cities across Europe and the America’s. They cut to a brief clip of the Prime Minister. He said that it was under control in Australia. Anyone who shows symptoms should call a newly established Muaro virus hotline. That was odd. Lawrence looked up news on his phone. No reports came up. There should be after the numbers he had seen last night.
The media wasn’t lying directly, but by omission. No wonder all the staff had to sign non-disclosure agreements. There were no reports of how many people the hospital had taken in, even though at least 23 were at his hospital alone. Let alone how many others around Melbourne. The government had dropped the ball and were trying to cover it up. The public wouldn’t know how to stay safe if there was no communication.
“Alright, I’m off to work,” he said.
“You stay home, don’t go to work,” she said, her English still broken after all her years in Australia.
Lawrence half regretted telling her about the outbreak. “We’re already understaffed, I can’t do that to them.”
“It don’t safe, take sick day,” she said.
He gave her a hug. “I’ll be alright mum, it’s all under control at the hospital.” He can’t stay here and put them at risk again. “You don’t need to worry.”
Lawrence called her after he arrived at the hospital. She hadn’t been happy, but his parents would be safe. He exited the lift to the ward on the third floor. Two federal police stood by either side of the door. They wore respirators and their drab navy uniforms. They held some kind of machine gun. He had never seen a gun in real life, and they made him uncomfortable.
“What’s your business here?” one said, his voice muffled. The only part of his face visible were his cold, hard eyes.
“I work here,” Lawrence said.
“Your name and ID,” he said.
Lawrence considered protesting the request but thought better of it. They eyed him suspiciously and ran his ID on a tablet. “Report to the testing station.”
A bearded man in his forties, his mask didn’t seem to fit properly, sat at a little desk by the entrance to the ward. “Take a seat,” the man said, gesturing to the seat in front of him. “I’m Toby, we’re testing all the staff.” Toby’s eyes had the wrinkles of a man who smiled often. “You haven’t had a cough, nausea, or been generally unwell?”
“Nah, no issues”
“Left or right?” Lawrence indicated his right. “A lefty, aye?” Toby smiled and put a tourniquet around Lawrence’s arm and pumped it up. “You haven’t had any aspirin, have you?”
“Nope.” There was a sharp scratch as the needle went in.
“Righty-o, can I just get your name and D.O.B. there, chief?” Toby asked as he removed the tourniquet.
“Lawrence Nguyen, 15th of March, 94.” He flexed his hand to help the blood flow. “Have we got any results on the bloodwork yet?”
“Well.. It’s a virus, but it’s different from anything we’ve seen before. We can’t even bloody work out what family of virus it belongs to, but we can tell it’s there. So it looks like we’re gunna have to get used to this.”
“Really? No idea at all?”
“Nah, but The CSIRO is working on it.” Toby removed the needle with a quick motion and replaced it with a cotton bud. “All good to go.” he said and Lawrence got up and went towards the ward. “Oh yeah, Naveen asked me to send you his way.” Toby called out.
Lawrence ignored the AFP officer standing stiffly, his machine gun pointed at the ground, as he entered Patel’s office.
“How you holding up?” Lawrence could tell Patel hadn’t gone home. His clothes, crumpled like he’d fallen asleep in his chair and deep bags lined his eyes.
“73 patients, that’s how we’re doing.” Patel yawned. “We’re not equipped to deal with this and management isn’t doing a damn thing about it, now we’ve got government nannies in the way too.”
“73?” Lawrence sighed, “Why do the cops have guns now? Seems unnecessary.”
“I don’t like it either… but, that is out of our control, we best worry about the things we can influence.” Patel massaged the back of his neck. “I’ve already talked to Mary but if you get a chance, we don’t even have enough beds. Another doctor’s input might help.”
They had been understaffed when they only had the first lot of patients, now they had triple the amount of patients and the same number of staff. Management would have to assign more workers. It wouldn’t be fair to whoever they chose. He hoped they would ask for volunteers.
“Lawrence, where are you staying?” Patel asked.
“I’ve been staying at my parents’ place.”
“Ah,”
“Yeah, I booked a hotel for tonight though.”
“Best you don’t go somewhere so public. I have a spare room you’re welcome to use while this goes on.”
A steady stream of patients had arrived over his shift. Empty beds and space running out, they sent as many as they could home with instructions to isolate. He opened the door to the break room, his stomach rumbled, with so much to do he’d missed his break by an hour.
There was a sharp beep, Lawrence massaged his temples, let the door swing closed and checked his pager.
Lawrence checked over a man in his 30’s laid out on a hospital bed. They were in a recently converted office. The bed took up most of the room and made conditions cramped. Kim ran through the patient’s history as he worked. Two cops hovered by the door, Lawrence could feel their presence, they were intruding on his space.
“Bite wounds?” Lawrence asked and checked the bandage on the man’s neck. The man was unconscious and his breathing was a bit too rapid for Lawrence’s liking. “These are pretty severe for bites.”
“Human bites,” she said.
“Weird,” Lawrence checked the machines. His heartbeat was a little fast. “Why are we getting him?”
“Every patient is given a blood test now, and he came up positive. So he’s ours. Got a really high reading too.” Kim said, “you gunna stay in the new ward?”
“New ward?”
“Yeah, they’re opening one up for staff to stay in.” Kim said as she checked his temperature. “I think I’ll stay, sounds like a school camp. Should be fun. Temperature is low.”
“Ha, that sounds awful,” he said, “living at work? My life is sad enough already.”
Alerts from the machines beeped. The man’s heart rate increased rapidly, it made little sense he was stabilised. “He’s going into tachycardia, get the defibrillator ready.”
They applied the adhesive pads. “Clear,” Lawrence waited for Kim to step away.
The shock stopped his heart. “Beginning CPR,” Lawrence said, the procedure well practiced.
Lawrence compressed the man’s chest in rhythmic beats as Kim readied the mask ventilator.
A force roughly knocked him aside. Confused, he watched as the two cops bagged the patient.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said.
One glared at him. “Look mate, you do your job and leave us to ours.”
“I am.” He felt the anger in his voice. “That man’s not dead yet.”
The cop shrugged and casually said, “looked pretty dead to me.” They wheeled the bed out of the room.
Lawrence moved between them and the door. “Where are you taking him? “
“Move,” the cop said, his tone commanding. “Or you’ll be put under arrest.”
Lawrence saw Kim gesture to him to move out of the way. They pushed past him and rolled the bed out into the hallway. “What in the hell is going on here? I’m going to talk to management. This is ridiculous.”
“Management won’t do anything, the head nurse already tried,” Kim said, sounding resigned. “We lost five patients since last night. Same thing happened to them too.”
Fuming Lawrence had an idea. He locked himself in the accessibility toilet. It was a sealed room. No one to overhear. He searched the internet and installed the requested anonymising app. He dialed.
“This is the tip line,” a woman said, “how can I help you?”
“I’m a doctor at a Melbourne hospital, the government is covering up what’s happening at hospitals.”
