The Queen Mary; Deck 1, the Medical Centre
The Queen Mary’s Medical Centre. Interesting
Here’s a funny thing.
The medical centre on this ship is on Deck 1, the lowest platform of the vessel. It is a funny deck, being home to pallets of vegetables, bits of engine, mysterious boxes with funny labels, rooms named after “Kensington”, “Chelsea”, “Belgravia” and “Knightsbridge” – some of London’s most salubrious suburbs and the medical centre.
I know this only because I was exercising. Yes, I know. However, as part of my regime I spent some fifteen minutes on a treadmill, not normally a dangerous pastime. Excruciatingly boring, yes, but not inherently death-defying.
However, on board a ship that lurches gently in unpredictable parabolas, one finds one’s feet searching for land, and in extremis, finding one’s ankle tendons being left far behind, flapping in the proverbial wind. Hence my trip to the medical centre.
Now, what is really odd about it is that the elevator (or” lift” as it is called on this splendidly British ship) only goes to a couple of points Deck 1, neither accessible to the medical centre. No, to get medical help, one has to go to Deck 2 and walk down two flights of stairs. I hobbled down, clutching the railing in a somewhat melodramatic manner to emphasise my plight, wondering how someone with a serious injury would be able to access the doctor. Would they slide down? Are there special “buckets” in which the wounded are propelled to Deck 1? A system of weights and pulleys? Enquiring minds need to know.
However, the doctor was very good, the ankle duly bound and now a wheelchair to look forward to at the airports en route home. At least the immigration queue will be short.