Jim Davenport (48) is chief clinical engineer at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin.
The clinical engineering department is in charge of the maintenance of all the computers and technical equipment in the hospital. We work regular office hours but of course the hospital doesn't run nine to five so we're always on call. Our busiest time is around half four, as everybody wants to grab us before we're gone for the day.
As well as maintenance, a lot of our work is training people to use the different systems and equipment. The turnover of nursing is very high so the clinical engineers can provide a long-term expertise. We don't try to be doctors and we don't rush in and tell people what to do.
We might observe something and then say "Well, have you tried doing it like this? Or perhaps you might find it easier this way". Diplomacy is important and we stick to what we know.
I was fresh out of studying telecommunications in Kevin Street and I was told they were looking for work in Crumlin, so I came up, locked my bike outside, did the interview and they told me I could start the following Monday. I came home and told my mother and I said that it would do for the time being. That was 28 years ago. One of our most important tasks is moving patients who are in intensive care and can't breathe for themselves, in particular flying them over to the British hospitals for transplants or other emergency procedures.
One Sunday evening a good few years back we were bringing a child over to England for a liver transplant and at that stage you had to stabilise the patient and then use a scoop-and-run system, like taking someone from the scene of a traffic accident.
It wasn't ideal and it made me put me on my thinking cap. I designed a mobile intensive care system from scratch and developed it over the years. Now we can move the intensive care unit (ICU) with the patient rather than bring the patient to the ICU. It's a standard cot with a monitor and ventilator attached, and it's reinforced so it can survive any knocks or bangs in transit. The quickest we can do a run to London is four hours, door to door. We usually go by helicopter but five or six times a year the Air Corps help us out with one of their planes.
I've had a great relationship with the army boys over the years and I was asked to write a poem for the memorial service of four men killed in a helicopter crash in Waterford in 1999. I do a few bits and pieces like that. I also write for the hospital magazine; my last piece was about our grudge hockey match against the old rivals, Temple Street. I played back and we won 1-0. I do a bit of singing as well, although my performance at last year's hospital Christmas concert might be fit for a video bloopers show.