by Theseustoo.

Episode 1

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my own imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

St Helvi’s was the largest hospital in the South Ozzie city of Madeleine. Consequently, it was the busiest hospital in the city and this was its good fortune because large enough numbers of patients passing through the doors made it easy for the hospital administrators to convince their insurers that their medical staff were not actually incompetent and that the hospital’s fatality statistics were only marginally above the statistical norm, and, it was often argued, because it was, after all, a public hospital, St Helvi’s was obliged to take patients the private hospitals could afford to reject… such as those who looked like they had less than…