Every room has a call bell and every press goes to the pager on the night carer's belt and onto a log that says when it was pressed and when it was answered. Room nine presses at ten past two. It has been empty since the lady in it died in March. The log says the bell is answered within a minute, every night, by a carer's badge, and the carer whose badge it is works days and is at home in bed.
I am the night senior at a care home with thirty two residents and the call log is the first thing I read in the morning and the last thing I read at night.
The bells.
A cord by the bed and a button on the wall. Press either and the pager on the night carer's belt buzzes with the room number and the log starts a clock, and when the carer goes in and presses the reset on the wall the clock stops, and that is the response time, and the response time is the thing the inspectors read.
Room nine presses at ten past two.
Room nine.
Empty since the fourth of March. The lady in it was ninety one and had been with us six years and she died in the afternoon with her daughter there, which is the way you would want it, and the room was cleared and cleaned and it is waiting for the next person, and the next person has not come, because the manager, who does not believe in any of this, has not put anybody in it.
The cord is tied up. The button is on the wall. At ten past two the log says room nine, and the pager buzzes, and the clock starts.
The answer.
The clock stops. Within a minute, every night. The reset is pressed. The log records which badge pressed it, because the carers badge in when they reset, and the badge is one of ours. A day carer. A woman who has worked here eleven years, who is at home in bed at ten past two, who has never worked a night, and whose badge is in her locker in the staff room, and I have checked the locker at ten past two with the log on my phone saying her badge is in room nine.
What has been checked.
The bell unit in nine. Replaced. The log records a press.
The room, at ten past two, by me, standing in it, with the door open and the corridor light on. The pager on my belt buzzes. Room nine. I am in room nine. Nobody has pressed anything. The cord is tied up above the bed and the button on the wall is a button. And then the reset clicks. I hear it, the small click of it, on the wall by the door, a foot from my shoulder, and the pager stops, and the log says answered, and the badge is hers.
Who answers.
I asked the day carer. I did it carefully, because she had looked after the lady in nine for six years, and she was the one who sat with her on the afternoons the daughter could not come. I asked her whether she had ever answered nine at night.
She said she had. She said that when the lady was alive she had rung every night at about two, for years, not for anything, to check somebody was there, and that the nights had been slow with her and the lady had told her, on a day, that she waited and waited, and that she, the day carer, had started staying late, on her own time, in the staff room, until ten past two, and going in when the bell went, and saying, I am here, and going home.
She said she had done that for about four years and had stopped when the lady died. She said it had felt like a thing that was finished.
I did not tell her it was not.
What is done about it.
The response time on room nine is the best in the home and it is on the inspection report as such, and the inspector asked who the carer was who was so quick, and the manager said the night team, and the night team did not correct him.
What I do.
I run nights.
I did not tell the day carer and I am not going to. She did a good thing for four years and she is allowed to have finished. But I have started going to nine at five past two and sitting in the chair, the one by the bed, the one she sat in, so that when the bell goes the room is not empty when whatever answers it arrives.
The bell goes. I am in the chair. And the reset clicks, by the door, and the pager stops, and I say, to the room, I am here, because somebody should say it and it does not matter that it is not the right somebody.
Last week the log changed. Room nine, ten past two, answered, and the badge was mine. I had not touched the wall. I was in the chair. Whatever presses the reset had pressed it with my badge, from my belt, across the room, and I think that was it telling me that it knows who is in the chair now, and that she can stop, and that I can take it, and I have.