I was involved (professionally, you understand) with an in-theatre operation this week in a town that mos def wasn't in the north and the patient was brought in to the theatre suite handcuffed to a prison officer. The prisoner/patient was male but the officer was a female, but you wouldn't have wanted to fight her - heck, David Haye wouldn't have wanted to fight her!. She was, in their parlance, 'last man standing' as all the other prison officers - and there were a lot, this was a high profile prisoner - had dropped off one by one in the preceding departments leading to the operation room but she was still attached to him and remained so until he was declared 'unconscious'. She then removed the bracelet and was invited to remain with him during the procedure. But when the femorals were opened, she looked ill and left the room, pleading with the gasman to inform her when the anaesthetic was about to be reversed so she could re-attach herself to him. It was bizarre. How on earth did they expect a deeply sedated patient who'd undergone a very invasive operative procedure to have had the wherewithal and the physical capability to 'do a runner'? It was simply impossible but 'rules are rules' was the mantra she kept repeating.
