Because Jacob has delayed releasing ambulances, who will get to Robyn? (Pictures: BBC)
Robyn (Amanda Henderson)’s final shift in Casualty didn’t end the way anyone expected. At the beginning of the day she’d left Paul (Paul Popplewell) at home with Charlotte (Aurora Jones), packing up all their belongings in readiness for starting their new life in Wigan.
Meanwhile Marty (Shaheen Jafargholi) revealed that he was planning a party for the popular nurse at the end of the shift and had even got Robyn a cake.
But first there was a day’s work to be done, and after Robyn’s official shift had ended Jacob (Charles Venn) asked her to stay on for a few more hours as once again the department was stretched to breaking point. Max (Nigel Harman) had told Jacob that the future of the ED was at stake if they were seen to be performing badly by the Board, and this was on Jacob’s mind as he tried to get maximum efficiency from his team.
Maximum efficiency meant that the staff were expected to treat people quickly and then move them on, which of course has never been the Casualty way. At Holby ED the focus has always been on the problems that lie behind the ailments that people first present with, and it’s only by digging deeper with instinct and compassion that the staff usually get to the bottom of what’s really going on.
This was the case for several of the patients this week, including a young mother, Dawn (Melissa Parker), who’d brought her baby in after he fell. Robyn noticed that Dawn seemed ill and like she hadn’t eaten and brought her a snack, but she was convinced there was a bigger problem. Jacob insisted on her taking Dawn’s situation at face value, but later Robyn was proved to be right when they discovered that both Dawn and the baby had been suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning – and Dawn almost died after going back home.
How do we feel about this then? (Picture: BBC)
Another disagreement with Jacob over the treatment of two young people hurt in a fairground accident and Jacob’s decision to stop admitting critical patients meant that by the end of her extended shift, Robyn was seething. She and Jacob had a stand-up row in the department, and Robyn was even more angry when her dear old friend Charlie (Derek Thompson) refused to come to her defence.
She told them she was done, and took her cake and left the ED for the final time, pausing only to say goodbye to Iain (Michael Stevenson) on the way out and give a last look at the building where she’s worked for the last ten years.
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And that should have been Robyn’s exit from the ED and from Casualty, but there was a final twist. When the call came for an ambulance to attend a multiple car accident, Jan (Di Botcher) was furious that because of Jacob’s ban on admitting critical patients she and Sah (Arin Smethurst) couldn’t offload a patient from their ambulance and respond to the call.
Then we saw the scene of the crash, and one car in particular on its roof. With Robyn inside, badly injured and whimpering in pain.
Will she be found in time to save her life?
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Not Robyn!
