K.'s Reviews > You Called an Ambulance for What?

Content warnings: graphic medical emergencies, graphic medical procedures, graphic descriptions of death, blood, vomit, poop, pandemic, racism, classism, ableism

Look, I went into this wanting to enjoy it. I kind of figured it would be an Aussie ambo's version of This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay - a scathing examination of the medical system with entertaining stories about patients along the way. And, like, it kind of WAS that? But it was also just deeply problematic to the point where the stories lost their entertainment value and just felt like someone with a severe case of burn out venting about their job.

On the positive side, I'll say that it was definitely eye opening to see some of the things that people call an ambulance for. And I absolutely agree that our ambos are extremely overworked and underpaid and they deserve better.

But.

Booth spends SO much time being derogatory towards the population of south western Sydney. He's derogatory towards ethnic minorities. Towards those experiencing poverty. Towards those with disabilities. He more or less verbatim says that people with fibromyalgia are all just junkies looking for their next hit of opiates. And then at the end of the book he lets slip that one of the most impactful stories he tells in the entire book was completely fabricated???

I just... Yeah. I could see the humour he intended. I just didn't find it funny (with the exception of the Foo Fighters song titles conversation. That was great).

Essentially, this book is completely lacking in empathy and I genuinely had to stop reading to look into an invisible camera, Jim Halpert style, when he argues that the safety of modern motor vehicles is a problem because it means paramedics don't get a chance to train on really BAD accidents.

So while I fully understand that people calling an ambulance for a blocked nose or a sniffle or a paper cut or whatever is extremely frustrating and a waste of ambulance time and resources, I don't think the level of bitterness and disgust Booth has towards the general population particularly endears the reader to his arguments.