Vreni Schweizer: Half a life for the children's hospital

It weighs just five grams, the paper that Vreni Schweizer carries into her boss's office. But what's written on it weighs half a lifetime. She has worked for the Basel Children's Hospital for 44 years, has watched over the beds in the intensive care unit as a nurse, managed the outpatient clinic and most recently the emergency ward, which she herself helped to set up. And now the door to the office of Caroline Stade, Head of Nursing, opens and there is a carpet laid out for her, consisting of dozens of paper handkerchiefs.

«I knew that Vreni was going to give me her very first notice,» says Caroline Stade. She wanted to be prepared when the tears started to flow. Which of the two needed the tissues more, her or Vreni Schweizer, she smiles and keeps it a secret.

The calm in the storm

The young Vreni Schweizer had experienced how, in the 1970s, pompous physicians could stare down experienced nurses if they dared to think and act independently. However, she also saw how the patriarchal structures increasingly dissolved and collegial cooperation developed. It is hard to shake the impression that this might have had a lot to do with her at the Basel Children's Hospital when you meet Vreni Schweizer in today's emergency and see the presence with which this petite person pulls the strings here.

«Have you seen the emergency yet?» asks Vreni Schweizer during our visit. We are standing in her triage area. She explains what the procedures are here, who has which function and why there are more and more cases. In between, she quickly tells the head emergency doctor, Michel Ramser, where he can find the tubes for forensic blood samples. With her alert gaze, she keeps the situation in the waiting area under control, her voice exuding the calm and vigour of a forest.

According to Vreni Schweizer, a kind of consumer attitude has developed in an emergency: «Everyone always wants to be treated immediately.»

A teenage girl is wheeled out of the shock room, past her family and two friends in the waiting area, numerous devices and tubes are attached to the stretcher. The patient stares into space. «It wasn't originally planned that the bad cases would have to pass all the waiting patients,» says Vreni Schweizer. But now it's not so bad: «Other parents sympathise and are almost happy that their own child is doing relatively well. They then also understand why they might have to wait a little longer to see a doctor.»

It's the big issue in emergencies: waiting times. With over 36,000 consultations a year and real peaks in the winter months, emotions can run high. Vreni Schweizer also sees this as a reflection of the times.

In an emergency, a kind of consumer attitude has set in: «Everyone always wants to be treated immediately.» This is the biggest change she has noticed in her 44 years in nursing. However, she has never personally experienced really critical situations in which the security service would have had to intervene. «My age is probably an advantage here,» she believes.

All for one

When Vreni Schweizer talks about an emergency, she often refers to it as a «circus». She doesn't necessarily mean that it can sometimes be a bit chaotic. It's more the tension of never knowing what the day will bring. «Sometimes almost nothing happens and then suddenly you think there must have been five emergency patients on the last bus at once.» If Rega then flies in, it's all systems go. And Vreni Schweizer, in the middle of it all, conducts the circus orchestra.

«Vreni not only knows what to do, but also how to do it most efficiently,» says the doctor who has known her the longest. Urs Zumsteg, now Head of Outpatient Medicine, has been working with Vreni Schweizer since 1985.