24 Hours in A and E

8:30pm Thursday, December 15 on TV One

In the final episode of 24 Hours In A & E, doctors at King’s College Hospital accident and emergency department in London deal with a population that is becoming more and more psychologically fragile.

A regular patient to King’s, who suffers from schizophrenia, is admitted after failing to take his diabetes medicine – it’s his nineteenth visit in a year. Meanwhile, a young girl seeks refuge with the mental health team. She’s in crisis and struggling to cope with life.

Psychiatric nurse Jenny has seen it all and reveals that the patients her team have to deal with are getting younger and younger. One patient with suicidal thoughts was just seven years old. Joseph, a 16-year-old schoolboy is rushed to A&E after suffering a suspected stroke and is joined at his bedside by his twin brother Elijah and their mother, as they await the results of a brain scan.

Clive, 61, a former betting shop manager is also suspected of having a stroke. Known as the ‘Memory Man’ in his youth he is now coming to terms with his diminishing mental abilities – but it may just be his anti-depressants, coupled with years of alcoholism that is his real problem.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours In A & E? Full episodes are available online. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand.’

8:30pm Thursday, October 27 on TV One

With 70 cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, 24 Hours in A&E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A and E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

Tonight, the medical team, patients and their families face the meaning of life and death.

Seventy-seven-year-old former motorbike racer John has been sent to A&E with wife Brenda after a routine health screening revealed a potentially-deadly ‘Triple A’ – abdominal aortic aneurism – a dramatic swelling of the main artery that could burst at any moment, making him a ‘walking time bomb’. The only option is major surgery, which could be dangerous at John’s age.

Meanwhile, 92-year-old widow Eileen has been brought into hospital after falling and spending the night on the floor. Consultant Liz is worried Eileen may have broken her hip and wants to keep her in overnight to make sure she’s fine.

“Lots of times there’s nothing I can do,” says Liz. “We are meant to grow old, we are meant to get ill and we are meant to die. I can fiddle about at the edges of that, but there’s no sort of magical response in this hospital that can change that.”

Amongst the other patients is Claire. A year ago her boyfriend, a medical student, was killed instantly while cycling to lectures, now she’s been injured on her bike.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours In A&E? Full episodes are available online. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.

8:30pm Thursday, October 6 on TV One

With 70 cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, 24 Hours in A & E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A & E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

This week’s episode reveals what can happen when something goes wrong with the brain, including when patients suffer a stroke (or ‘brain attack’).

Charlie Brown a 65-year-old cabbie is making his second visit to King’s in a week. Two days previously he crashed his cab and ‘bulls-eyed’ the window with his head. Though stitched up and discharged, Charlie’s not been the same since, reading the newspaper upside down and becoming uncharacteristically chatty.

Dr Tian is concerned that this may be as a result of a brain haemorrhage caused by his accident. When a scan shows a large dark patch on the left side of Charlie’s brain, his fears seem well-founded.

Also in A & E is 89-year-old Peggy Pierce. Her husband Derek woke to find her slumped semi-conscious over the bed and she’s been rushed into King’s with a suspected stroke.

This isn’t the first time Derek’s had to take an emergency trip to the hospital with his wife, so he’s braced for the worst.

King’s is a specialist Stroke Centre, treating on average three cases a day, and doctors know time is of the essence. “It’s terrifying”, says stroke specialist Dr Kumar. “It’s like a heart attack. It’s a brain attack.”

Meanwhile, in the waiting room, Sally is comforted by ex-boyfriend Ben while she awaits treatment for a cut finger; and two boisterous friends entertain themselves with an impromptu ride around the department in a wheelchair.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours in A & E? Full episodes are available on line. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.

8:30pm Thursday, September 29 on TV One

With 70 cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, 24 Hours in A & E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A & E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

In this week’s episode, the emergency department is besieged with Saturday night drunks. Alcohol is one of the biggest causes of injury seen by staff at King’s A & E – on an average weekend as many as half the cases can be alcohol-related.

Sean, 39, has had one too many, tripped over a clothes horse, fallen and broken his neck. The medical team has attached blocks to the sides of his head to stop him from moving his neck and prevent him from paralysing himself, but it’s a struggle to persuade him to leave them there.

Andrew, 26, has been arrested after a day of heavy drinking. “To be honest with you I can’t remember too much about it,” he says. The police have brought him to King’s because he’s put his hand through a window and cut it. It takes two officers to hold him still – and, after he refuses to co-operate, three to lead him away to the police van waiting outside.

David, 56, is a long-term alcoholic who’s collapsed in the street and bashed his head. When he was two, he survived a plane crash that killed his mother. “That may have started it, I don’t know,” he says. He drinks a bottle of brandy in the morning and another in the evening. “Booze has ruined my life,” he adds. “I’ve basically wasted my life.”

Missed an episode of 24 Hours In A & E? Full episodes are available on line. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.

8:30pm Thursday, September 22 on TV One

With 70 cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, 24 Hours in A & E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A & E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

Tonight, 11-year-old Kofi is rushed in, critically injured after being hit by a van. His father, Wayne, sits by Kofi’s bedside praying for his recovery: “I remember when Kofi was born I counted all his fingers and toes and held him in the air.”

Meanwhile, 73-year-old Roger Jackson is coming to terms with his own mortality. A member of The Tornados, the first British group to top the US pop charts in the sixties, Roger confesses that, despite having cancer, he wouldn’t give up his rock ‘n’ roll fame for his health.

And senior consultant Chris Lacy is tested to the limit when three trauma patients arrive in quick succession: one has been shot in the face, another has been stabbed in the chest and a third has been knifed in the head.

As armed police arrive and a gang gathers outside A & E, tempers flare and Chris calls for calm as Kofi fights for his life.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours in A & E? Full episodes are available on line. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.

8:30pm Thursday, September 15 on TV One

With seventy cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, 24 Hours in A & E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A and E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

Tonight, the ‘red phone’ from the ambulance service rings, signaling the imminent arrival of a seriously-ill patient. 31-year-old Brendan has had a head-on collision between his motorbike and a car, ‘bulls-eyeing’ the windscreen.

Brendan’s broken both his wrists, but he’s most worried about injuries to his testicles – so bruised that his penis looks like a ‘purple carrot’.

Teenager Alex turns up with nasty injuries to his hand after punching it through a window. Will he learn a lesson once he’s been patched up by the A and E staff?

Meanwhile, as the Resus team struggle to revive two patients in their eighties, they discuss what they would want done in the same situation.

And sisters Pat and Alice are concerned about when they can get a sandwich from trolley man, Pritpal.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours in A & E? Full episodes are available on line. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.

8:30pm Thursday, September 8 on TV One

We’re all just one wrong step, one sudden illness, one unlucky break away from the hospital, and its accident and emergency department. It’s a place where dramatic stories of love, life and death unfold every day.

With seventy cameras filming round the clock for 28 days, the new series 24 Hours in A and E offers unprecedented access to one of Britain’s busiest A and E departments, at King’s College Hospital in London.

With each episode focusing on patients who were treated within the same 24-hour period, 24 Hours in A and E captures the joy and heartache faced by patients and their families, as well as the hard work and professionalism of the A and E staff.

From life-threatening traumas to embarrassing mishaps, 24 Hours in A and E is an intimate, powerful and sometimes comic, insight into life – and death – on the frontline of the UK’s National Health Service.

Tonight, senior consultant Malcolm Tunnicliff and his team face a battle to save a ‘Code Red’ – a patient with potentially fatal injuries – brought into A and E by helicopter.

33-year-old Greek student Theodore Chatziapostolou was dragged under a bus while crossing the road at the Elephant and Castle. Trapped, he was literally folded in two with his ‘nose touching his toes’.

Hovering between life and death he has multiple serious injuries, including ‘the worst pelvic injury I’ve ever seen; it is in bits’. Tunnicliff has 15 minutes to keep him alive so he can find out what’s wrong with him and work out how to save him.

The same day, 13 other emergency cases are treated in Resus, including 78-year-old Tom Gibbs, who fell head-first off a ladder while painting his daughter’s landing (‘at least I done the awkward bits’), and a confused cyclist with a severe head injury.

Missed an episode of 24 Hours in A and E? Full episodes are available on line. Go to www.tvnz.co.nz and click ‘on demand’.