War and Peace on D Level

I was pottering around on the wards today, trying to find a patient to chat to who wasn't a) asleep, b) confused, c) uncompliant or d) dead. As I shuffled along to the third ward in vain, I absent-mindedly looked up and I found that I'd wandered into a group of pensive looking nurses, who were staring defensively down the corridor, and backing off fairly sharpish. I didn't have time to fully get my bearings before I heard somebody say "careful, he's got a glass as well", and then caught sight of the tumbler hurtling towards our general direction. As the shards of glass cascaded around my shoes I finally got a good look at the barefoot, unkempt elderly gentleman from whom they had originated. He was sporting a rather nifty clashing pair of NHS pajamas, two sizes too big, and was ducking and diving around outside his sideroom, bright eyed and ready to go. Obviously something had set him off, in most cases it's fear stemming from confusion about where they are or what we're doing with their arm and needles. The sister ordered that all the bay doors be closed, and all the petite little nurses and physios retreated to a safe distance. She asked someone to bleep the junior doctor, so he could "see that he really is this bad". Blatantly we'd been ignoring him in the past, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, doctors hate everyone and deliberately treat them badly, just read the Sun. Only a porter held the elderly patient at bay with a transporting cage, much like a gladiator would hold back a lion with a trident. Whenever the patient tried to get around the cage one way, the porter would roll it around and cut him off. I felt obliged to ask the sister if there was anything I could help with, but I'm sure my honest offer was misconstrued as a macho dig, that I assume that in my capacity as a man I have a sworn right and duty to protect all women. But, thank the lord, the porter kept the old guy at bay until security arrived and cracked open their extra large bag of bravado. They opened with the line "oh, it's you mate, we had a chat on G level a few weeks ago. Come on then, pipe down." They don't have to crawl through a mountain of red tape to talk honestly to a rowdy patient like we do, and they do it well. I didn't want to get in the way any further, so I lurked off for my fifth coffee.
In retrospect, when I offered to help restrain him, could I really have won that battle? On one hand, if I wasn't forceful enough, and a nurse had gotten punched or something, I would've had some apologies to make, let alone a feeling of incapability. On the other hand, if I appeared too forceful, I'm suddenly abusing a confused old dear who just got angry because he forgot where he was for a second. No matter how much "conflict resolution" I do, no matter how good at karate I get, I couldn't have done much good. Either way somebody is getting hurt, or at least getting a big kick to the ego. Just another one of the semi-reflective situations I find myself in from day to day, struggling to learn lessons from them, although their poignancy suggest they should teach me something about life. I guess we don't have time; we brush up the broken glass, calm him down, and hope it doesn't happen again for a while.