Delivering to hospitals is so annoying!!!!111

Driver Jatt

Delivering to hospitals is so annoying!!!!111

If you’re lucky enough to have a named contact for a delivery, you can bet something incredibly valuable that they aren’t going to be available. It’s a law of logistics. But before you even get to that bit, you’ve got to win the first battle.

Parking.

You can’t stop anywhere. You can’t. Down here, there are cameras on every lamppost, signs on every wall, threatening to financially bum you dry if you even dare think of stopping. I’m not kidding. They have your reg before you’ve even cut the engine. The loading bay, the one safe zone, is often closed ‘out of hours’ (which is, conveniently, whenever you arrive), and there aren’t any staff available to open it or tell you where else to go. First challenge: don’t get a ticket while doing your job.

Now, here’s a bit of good news if your run takes you north of the border. Unlike the predatory cameras in England, hospital parking in Scotland is officially free for everyone, patients, visitors, and yes, us delivery drivers included. The Scottish government made it policy years ago and even recently spent millions buying out the last few private car parks in the big cities to make it universal.

But and there’s always a but don’t think this means you can park anywhere. You still need to find a proper bay, follow the site-specific rules, and in many places, grab a free ‘collect and display’ ticket from a machine. Get it wrong, and you’ll still get slapped with a fine. So it’s free, but it’s not a free-for-all. A small mercy, but a welcome one when you’re on the clock.

Anyway, with many hospital deliveries down here, they are often addressed to a person in a particular department. Not ‘Main Reception’. Something specific. Like ‘Theatres, Level 3, East Wing’. Or ‘Haematology Lab, Block C’. You’re now a detective in a maze.

You’ll drag whatever you need to deliver often a box of urgent medical supplies, something that feels important all the way to this department, only to find the named contact hasn’t actually told anyone they are expecting something. Or the person who sent it hasn’t communicated ahead. Because, y’know, communication isn’t really that important when it’s a time-sensitive delivery to a hospital, right? Meh.

You stand there, in scrubs-and-stethoscope land, holding a box, while a very busy nurse or porter tries to figure out who you are and why you’re there. You feel like an intruder. This is pretty much the summary of most same-day hospital deliveries. A mix of urgency and utter bafflement.

However, you do get some exercise. Trying to find the right department means you’ll see parts of the hospital the public never do. Miles of identical corridors. You’ll get your steps in. And there’s always, always a public loo available to use somewhere on the route. A small victory. So, happy days.

Here are some pics taken during the week. Proof of life from inside the maze.