Friday 25 September 2009

Barman... make mine a large gel and tonic



Desperate situations call for desperate measures… like the prisoner in a British jail who recently managed to get himself drunk on the alcohol-based hand gel that was brought into the prison to counteract the threat of swine flu.

Now, I’ll admit that being banged up in a hospital on high-strength painkillers and antibiotics strong enough to scare the shit out of MRSA can and does limit one’s opportunities for the occasional snifter. Before long you find yourself dreaming of long-forgotten little pleasures like an ice-cold beer on a scorching summer’s day or the delicious blackcurrant bouquet of a fruity Australian Shiraz on a winter’s eve.

In hospital, such thoughts can drive a sane man to the very edge of madness in much the same way as the thought of a clear cold stream of water can finish off a poor soul lost in the Sahara.

For some reason, British hospitals are total no-go areas for life’s little pleasures like alcohol and tobacco. You can have as much Smack, morphine and other opiates that come round on the drugs trolley in the same way that desserts used to be wheeled around restaurants, but mention the possibility of a small glass of cider or a sweet sherry with your meal, and the Substance Abuse Counsellor will be summoned just as soon as an appropriate note can be scribbled into your medical notes.

So this brings me back to the story of the British prisoner drinking hand gel in order to relieve the monotony of institutional life. The old lag in question had purloined a gel dispenser and then mixed it with fruit juice, water and sugar before proceeding to climb out of his tree.

I particularly enjoyed the quote from Andy Fear, a spokesman for the Prison Officers’ Association, who told the BBC:

“We were informed of an incident within hours of the gel being available. In one of the wings it is believed an inmate was using it inappropriately.


“When you get something called alcohol gel you can see what is going to happen. We had concerns when we heard these were being given to inmates. You don't want drunk prisoners running around the prison.”

I should think not, too! No more than you’d want patients running up down the ward smashed out of their minds.

Amazingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has decided to mix a Swine Flu Sling in the absence of any other tipple. Last March The Royal Bournemouth Hospital announced that it was one of many hospitals that had taken the precaution of removing alcohol-based hand-cleaning gel from reception areas in a bid to stop visitors drinking it. Such is the desperate level of life here in the UK that people are obviously stopping off at the hospital on the way home from work for a ‘quick gel’ with their mates. I knew we were in a recession, but I never realized it was that bad.

Anyway, all this talk of hand gel has caused me to work up a perishing thirst. So in the absence of a nice chilled bottle of Chablis to slake my hankering for booze, I think I’ll have a large tot of Purell Gel with my tuna and potato surprise tonight.

Cin Cin!

18 comments:

  1. Well the gel has got to be used up some way. Doctors and nurses sure don't use it for cleaning hands in my hospital, not even when they have been to the loo. We actually use it before we go to the loo, such is the filthy state of the staff toilets. But I guess when it's the same company that has both the cleaning contract and the catering contract in our prison - whoops, hospital - then does that come as any surprise?

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  2. You can't give patients alcohol. They might enjoy their stay, and we can't have patients malingering.

    The same theory might explain the food, come to think of it.

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  3. When I was in hospital in Peterborough about 10 years ago for 6 weeks I was doped up on morphine so much I thought I had twin girls who were off to the moon on a school trip, (I've got 3 boys). I reckon they did that so that I could be given MRSA and stay longer. Were they using me as a test case? Was it all in done for research on an idiot? I kid you not my husband still thinks it has traumatised all of us. The first meal they offered me after 3 weeks of nil by mouth was a plate full of sausage and chips which I have to say I couldn't eat. It looked far better than the crap sorry delights you have been subjected to and so it came back very easily after just 2 chips!!! After that my husband or Mum used to travel the 70 mile round trip to bring my food - in the end the nurses were included too. John often brought me Covent Garden chicken and lemon soup and it was fantastic. Can you arrange a survey of all visitors coming into the hospital and see how many make soup, then arrange to be the judge of said soups for a prize of not being encarcerated in your cell? Perhaps they could then go ans see "warmer uppers in the canteen". Try and get your wife to remember the vitamin pills next time kiddo, I think you'll improve quicker with those!! Zoe

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  4. Okay so you win, it's worse over there. In Australia you can get your Doctor to okay wine with dinner. I'm an outpatient at the moment but sadly (some would say insanely) I have just cancelled a night out at Tetsuya (you sound like a foodie so probably know who, what and where Tetsuya is) because of health "issues". But think I may have a lovely leeuwin estate art series chardonnay tonight to celebrate a slight improvement in my health status. Extravagant I know but someone was silly enough to give me a bottle!Start name dropping actual brands and you may just get a case of something smuggled to you somehow! Good luck!Penfolds Grange Hermitage!

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  5. Getting an Ozzie wine producer to sponsor the blog is a bonzer (sorry) idea. I'll Definitely drink to that. Are you listening Penfolds?

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  6. Yes, it appears that local drunks around these parts having been going into the hospital entrance to have a binge on alcohol gel. The powers that be have managed to get some new stuff which tastes rather like much of your food looks.

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  7. Oh I don't know. What say a nice gel and tonic when the sun's over the yard arm, chairps? May I freshen your glass, Matron? Certainly. Say when.

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  8. TM, just ask the nice nurse for some rubbing alcohol or surgical spirits. A teaspoon in a litre of orange juice and you'll be three hospital bedsheets to the wind.

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  9. Well if people ie services spoke to each other.... alcoholics in hospital have been drinking it for years ....

    Enjoying the blog especially the food bingo, I worked as a nurse for years and a sense of humour is a must for anyone who has to spend time there.

    Hope treatments working well, we do our best or at least most of us do Get Well Soon xxx

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  10. If you want Penfolds, an iconic Australian brand owned by Fosters(!), to sponsor you, you'd better get the AUSSIE vernacular right. It's Bonza and use 'Mate' alot. Oh yeah and every sentence is a question - we Aussie's love an inflection. That's inFLEction. Not inFECtion! Cheers Nicole

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  11. 'm from the west country... Everything ends with er as in Bonzer. :-) As for inflection, no chance with the antibiotics I've been taking. Cheers. Now where's that corkscrew, mate?

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  12. Back in the 1960s my grandmother was in hospital in Merseyside. She was asked if there was anything she wanted. She said that she'd love a bottle of Mackeson's stout (she normally drank it every night with milk -- yes really!)

    It was thought that this source of iron was quite suitable for an anaemic 70-year-old woman, so one was duly produced for her.

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  14. At the hospital where I work, all the clinical and nursing staff have small bottles of gel clipped to their uniforms. I didn't realise that they were really hipflasks.

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  15. drinking hand gel - now that really is desperate. Apparently a similar incident happened in an detox centre for alcoholics last year when one of the patients drank so much of the stuff he collapsed. The mind (and the liver ) boggles

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  16. Um, it is my understanding that the alcohol in alcohol gel hand rubs has in fact beeen de-natured. In other words it will NOT get you drunk in any way whatsoever. Check the bottle.

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  17. In that case the prison and the hospitals have made this story up just to delight Daily Mail readers. On the other hand, you could be wrong!

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