'I often meet people at rock bottom.' The hospital porter changing people's lives
Frank Higgins, Cork University Hospital. Hospital porter/driver for HSE.
Frank Higgins says: “If you’re in Cork University Hospital, and you can’t get home or you have a problem, well, you haven’t got a problem, because they’ll phone me and I will sort your problem, end of story.
“If it can be done, I will get it done.”
It’s lashing rain on Cork’s Sheares St, and Frank’s HSE hatchback is parked legally in the ambulance bay outside the Mercy University Hospital. Frank is due to pick up a Covid-19 patient in a minute, but he says he has just enough time for a quick chat.
A friendly man in his 50s, he takes pity on the Irish Examiner reporter, allowing him, fully masked and double-vaccinated, to sit in from the rain.
The car has been fully adapted for Covid, and the back section is completely screened off.
Frank is a porter in Cork University Hospital (CUH), and anyone who has been there over the past 33 years has been under his care, although these days he says he’s out on the road looking after patients as often as he is in the hospital.
“I cover the whole area of hospital transfers, so those patients who don’t need an ambulance come under my care. If somebody comes in and they need to be transferred anywhere in the country, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Cork, Dublin, Galway, anywhere, I’ll take them, and I’ll look after them. If it happens on Christmas Day, I don’t mind, I’ll be quite willing to cover it. I’m there for the patient.”
Since the start of the pandemic, he has handled transfers of patients who are suffering from Covid-19, dealing with CUH’s very first case.
When asked how many Covid patients he has helped, Frank laughs and says “Nearly two years of them!”
He says he is always
careful to think of the needs of patients, especially those who might be living on their own.
“If they need to be brought home, if they’re not well, I will escort them in home, and I’ll always check if they might need me to get them in a bit of shopping, or if they might need to get medication, because it’s no good dropping somebody in home if there’s nothing in the house, or they have nobody to look after them.
“I might make them a cup of tea, or I might put a dinner in the microwave for them. Sometimes I’ll light a fire for them before I leave, especially in the winter, because I’d be afraid that they might be cold.”
Frank recently brought a 90-year-old man home from hospital, stopping en route at the shop to get some messages, and then at the pharmacy, and he relates the tale with the skill of a born storyteller.
“When he got into the car, he says to me, ‘Frank, when we get to the house, I’ll introduce you to George’. When I got him home, I helped him in the door, and I helped him get ready for bed, and I made him a cup of tea. I stayed there for a small while chatting with him, and then I said to him ‘Where’s George?’ I thought George was somebody that was going to be maybe calling in.
“So, he says to me ‘Would you like to meet George?’ And I said I would, so says he, ‘Open the door’, and I opened the door and says he, ‘George? Daddy is home’. Well, a donkey came running down the field! And that donkey was like a jack russell he was so happy to see that man. And then the poor man says to me when I was leaving, ‘Frank, I hate asking but will you do me a favour?’ I said ‘Yes, if I can do you a favour, I’ll do it. I don’t care what it is.’ “Says he, ‘Will you ever feed George for me.’ So, I had to go out then and hang into a barrel and get out these things like cornflakes, only bigger, and break up bread, and feed the donkey. It was worth it, to see the happiness on that man’s face, and to see his donkey so glad to see him.”
Frank, a Ballyphehane native, says his working day begins at eight in the morning and might end at five, six, or seven in the evening, depending on the demands of the day, and no two days are ever the same.
“I could come across a car crash and I’ll stop and I’ll look after somebody until the ambulance comes. I would never pass anybody. If I meet anybody down on the side of the road, if it’s a cardiac arrest, I have training for that, and for that, I have to thank Eileen Kelly, who trained me, and my boss, Frank Power.
“I’m not a first responder, but if I do come across a cardiac arrest, I have the training. I can start CPR, and I can shock as well,” he says. “I carried it out one day on a man in the early days of Covid. A man dropped and somebody flagged me down. I started CPR on the man, I gave him the kiss of life, even though I didn’t have protective gear on me, I wasn’t worried about Covid. I wasn’t going to let that man die on my watch. And that man lived for a few days after, and that meant a lot to his family.”
The incident which has stuck most in Frank’s mind, he says, was a shooting he came across. “A man was shot in the head, and I fell in to help the ambulance lads with the patient. That man survived.”
Frank sometimes helps to transfer sick children, and that’s always something he says is a great privilege, especially if he can give a family a bit of comfort and dignity during the journey.
“If it’s a child who doesn’t need an ambulance to be transferred, we automatically kick in then, because it’s no good sending an ambulance to, say, Dublin when we can do it with a nurse and a parent. We’ll bring them to Dublin.”
He believes a purpose-built children’s facility within CUH would be a great idea, and that fundraising would be needed to help make that a reality, but, Frank notes, the people of Cork are always very generous.
As November darkens into December, Frank has misgivings about Christmas, because he feels it puts a lot of pressure on people who might have it tough, or who might not be so well off. “Christmas time, everybody thinks it’s a happy time, but it’s just not happy time for a lot of people. A lot of people just can’t afford Christmas. A lot of people are under pressure to keep up with other people. If I can at all, at Christmas time, I’ll often pick up a few presents, because I always know I’ll meet someone who’s down on their luck.”
Frank sees great kindness in people, although he comes across a lot of sadness in his work. “I often meet people at rock bottom. I’ll sit down and have my grub with them. Sharing a problem always makes it easier. Always try to boost people up and never knock them,” he says.
“The smallest kindness might save a life, and the people you help might say they never had somebody do that before for them. My attitude is it doesn’t matter what your problem is. If you have a problem, if I can sort it, I’ll sort it. That’s the kind I am.”
For Frank Higgins, being part of the CUH is his dream job; he says he would never work anywhere else. “My job title is porter but that’s not my line of duty. If I see someone in trouble, I will always help out. That’s what I’m here for, and I don’t come in in the morning and say ‘That’s not my job’.”
With that, he’s away in the rain to collect his next patient, and to get their messages if they need his help.
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