Free Confessions of a Male Nurse by Michael Alexander Page A

I burst into the room.
    ‘Okay boys, who’s first?’
    Silence.
    It was six o’clock in the evening and it was time for the boys to have what they had been dreading. It was enema time. I didn’t want to give the boys a chance to get away, so I had given them no warning. I entered their room fully armed and ready for action.
    The protests began immediately.
    ‘I’ve just been to the toilet; you don’t need to go waving that bloody thing round, you might poke an eye out,’ said Tom.
    The others followed his example.
    ‘Yes, I’ve been to the toilet as well; I refuse to have one.’
    ‘You can’t force that on me, I have rights.’
    The reason for the enema was simple. The doctor didn’t want to risk his patients becoming constipated, as this would put pressure on the prostate, and potentially increase post-operative bleeding. (Just for the record, they check your prostate by sticking a finger up your backside.)
    When I explained to them that it was either have an enema or the surgeon wouldn’t operate, the men soon gave in.
    But I still had the difficult job of choosing who to give the enema to first. I knew that if I picked the wrong man, he would kick up a fuss and exaggerate about how uncomfortable the procedure was. Since it was all Tom’s fault, I briefly considered doing him first; instead I picked Joe because he seemed the quietest, but sure enough, I picked the wrong man.
    ‘It’s blackmail, that’s what it is,’ he complained as I tried to pry his buttocks apart.
    ‘Stop fighting me and bend your knees up more,’ I ordered. ‘You’re making this much harder than it needs to be.’
    I managed to see the target and tried to insert the tube.
    ‘Arrrgh . . .’
    I began to squirt the water, hoping to get some inside.
    ‘Arrrgh . . .’
    Joes butt cheeks were so tightly clenched, I was miles away from the bull’s eye and water was dripping down all over his backside and my gloved hands.
    ‘Joe, just relax and it will be over soon,’ I kept on saying.
    ‘Relax,’ he said with indignation, ‘relax? You lie here and let me stick things up your arse and try to relax. Arrrgh.’
    He may have had a point, but I had a job to do. By the time I had finished, more enema fluid had spilt around Joe’s buttocks than up his rectum, but I had had enough and so a truce was called.
    I pulled back the curtain and my three remaining patients had gone rather pale. I couldn’t help but smile. They turned paler still. The sight of a grinning male nurse with an enema in one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other must have been pretty frightening.
    ‘That’s bloody murder, what you done in there, boy,’ said Simon, his voice trembling.
    Daryl made the sign of the cross. I imagined bursting into a macabre sort of laugh, but held myself in check.
    I approached my next victim – Daryl. He had nowhere to go; he was trapped in the corner.
    No one got away that night.
    Several years after this incident, I found myself in a urological ward in a large London hospital preparing to give some men their pre-surgery enema when the doctor in charge asked me what the hell I was doing.
    I explained that this is what we were instructed to do at home.
    ‘That went out with the dark ages; it hasn’t been used in years, unless there is a specific need.’
    What our surgeon had prescribed was fine, but procedures and protocols change, and some doctors don’t change as quickly as others – certainly not quick enough for Joe and the rest of the lads.

Dr Baker
    Like most professional environments, in hospital wards you have to learn to work with all sorts of people, even people who may be difficult or even unpleasant to be around. However, sometimes when the work pressure is particularly intense, cordial relationships are not always possible. When this happens in my line of work, everyone can suffer.
    Dr Baker had been the head urologist at the hospital for many years. He had worked so long and so hard for the local