Oh, Rash! (Pictures: BBC)
Rash (Neet Mohan) had a lot on his mind in tonight’s Casualty when his father (Kriss Dosanjh) came into the ED with his partner, Mona (Shobu Kapoor). She’d hurt her hand after shutting it in a door – and viewers of a squeamish nature will not have enjoyed the details of this or the treatment.
What concerned Rash more was the strained atmosphere between Ashok and Mona. Ashok complained more than once that his partner ‘doesn’t let me go out any more’ and was preventing him from seeing his friends. Paige (Shalisha James-Davis), who was treating Mona, noticed that the woman had Ashok’s phone and wallet in her bag.
She asked Rash if Ashok was in any trouble. Reviewing all the evidence, Rash came to a troubling conclusion – Ashok was having an affair.
The truth was even more troubling, however, and it fell to Charlie Fairhead (Derek Thompson) to suggest what was really going on to Rash.
‘He just seemed lost,’ Charlie said of the older man’s behaviour. He said that to him it looked like dementia.
Mona was struggling to cope looking after Ashok (Picture: BBC)
Of course Charlie knows more than most about dementia, having lived through his wife Duffy’s experience of the illness which led to her death. Rash tried to reject what Charlie was saying, telling him that it wasn’t his place to go round diagnosing people – but in his heart of hearts he knew Charlie was right.
At home he talked to Mona and she said that they’d been hiding Ashok’s deteriorating condition because it would bring shame in his community. Heartbreakingly she told Rash that his dad sometimes forgets who he is, and everyday things like how to cross the road, and she has to clean him up after he goes to the toilet with his trousers still on. She was clearly at the end of her tether and told Rash she was leaving because she couldn’t take any more.
After she’d gone, Ashok came downstairs and said he’d make a cup of tea for his son. He went into the kitchen and Rash saw for himself what happened next – his father completely forgot why he was in the kitchen. Gently Rash told him he’d make the tea, as he was no doubt left wondering what the future might hold for his father – and for him.
What’s going on then? (Picture: BBC)
Elsewhere Dylan (William Beck) was left with a mystery on his hands following the death of Jemima Hargrove (Souad Faress), a patient who was also one of his former teachers. She died following a fire at a care home, but over the course of the day it turned out that she could even have been the one who started the fire – though my bet is that it was Ethan (George Rainsford)’s patient Mr Welch.
Dylan didn’t believe this, or at least thought there was more to it, after noticing earlier injuries on Jemima and suspecting that her son, who she lived with, might have been hurting her.
The key seemed to lie in a notebook that Jemima had been so desperate to retrieve that she’d gone back into the burning building to get it and risked her life. Dylan had this document at the end of the episode and it was full of names and numbers, but their meaning remains a mystery for now.
And Paige, still facing a disciplinary for almost letting a patient die when she took on a task that was well above her capabilities before Christmas, crossed Stevie (Elinor Lawless) again when she sent a patient for a CT scan against Stevie’s orders.
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This time Paige was right and she almost certainly saved her patient’s life as a result. She was elated afterwards and even Stevie was forced to give her a ‘well done,’ but will it be enough to save her career when she goes up in front of the GMC?
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Well, our hearts are breaking.
