Super Saliva Operation Ouch! Hospital Takeover

He's Dr Chris.

He's Dr Xand.

BOTH: We're identical twins.

Or we were until you grew your beard!

In this series, we're taking over

one of the biggest children's hospitals in Europe,

the amazing Alder Hey in Liverpool.

We'll go head-to-head as we take on

some of our hospital's most important jobs.

This isn't going well.

Ouch And About hits the wards for more medical mysteries.

-That is a hole going inside your stomach.

-Yes.

And we meet our brilliant Ouch patients

who come in for regular treatment.

Hi!

We've hidden our lab in a top-secret location.

And our experiments just...

got...

bigger!

You guys are crazy!

So, are you ready to join us?

It's going to be out of this world.

I have to change my cape.

Coming up today on Operation Ouch...

We're all a-flutter...

This is completely magical.

..Spine tingling surgery...

And we learn a bit about spit.

BOTH: Wow!

That's amazing!

But first...

Sporting injuries bring around half a million people a year

to the accident and emergency department.

And here's another one.

Ah!

Oh. You don't mean here.

You mean in the accident and emergency department?

Yes. Obviously.

Landing on the accident and emergency helipad

is nine-year-old Jamie.

His neck's being supported by blocks and tape to stop it moving.

What's gone on, Jamie?

I fell on my neck funny,

and then loads of people landed on me.

How did that happen?

Jamie was playing in a rugby match

with his mum and dad cheering him on from the sidelines.

Yeah!

Give us a J! J!

Give us an A! A!

Yep, got it, thanks, Xand.

Jamie's a full-back and was making a heroic run to reach the ball.

Yeah! Go, Jamie!

Go, Jamie! Go, Jamie!

Everyone was hot on his heels.

Go, Jamie! Go, Jamie!

Go, Jamie!

He landed on his neck, and all the others piled in on top of him.

Ouch!

Here's Doctor Julie Grice to inspect for any damage.

Any pain at the front?

-No.

-Does it hurt there?

-Yes.

We worry about neck pain because your spinal cord goes through there.

I'm just going to poke down your back, OK?

I want you to tell me whether it hurts.

You say yes or no.

And try not to nod or shake your head. OK?

Doctor Julie and her team have to move Jamie very carefully,

because they don't want to make any injury even worse.

Does it hurt anywhere there if I'm pressing?

With Jamie clearly in pain,

Doctor Julie can't rule out a spinal injury.

So she's booked him in for an X-ray.

While he waits, the nurses tape him back up to the supporting blocks,

and the doctor asks Mum to give him some medication for the pain.

Find out what happens with Jamie's X-ray later on.

In hospital, it's not just the doctors and nurses

who help to get you fixed.

There are lots of other heroes working behind-the-scenes.

Ah, yes!

But what will happen when WE have a go at their amazing jobs?

I'm going to make your eardrums burst.

-BOTH:

-Useless!

This is Operation Takeover.

Today, we're meeting three heroes from the maintenance team.

Starting with engineer Adam.

The maintenance team keep everything in working order here at Alder Hey.

Adam, what does that involve?

Um, everything from ventilation to anything in between.

Toilets, lights.

What's on the menu today?

My next job is a...

A code brown.

Hang on a minute.

-What's a code Brown?

-Well, you're about to find out.

I'm so jealous!

Chris is getting to do a code brown!

Whatever that is.

He always gets all the best jobs.

This is a code Brown.

Eeew! It's poo!

Oh, no!

It's not the most glamorous job, but it's got to be done,

and you've got to keep the hospital operational.

Hold on a second. That looks like teabags.

Have you made up this code brown, especially for me?

Well, we might have done.

Or someone's been eating teabags!

Nothing like a nice cup of tea, Chris!

Bleurgh!

OK, so show me how you unblock the toilet.

Put the plunger in, go over the hole, and...

Get to it, Chris!

You're giving it some, aren't you?

Stop leaving it all to Adam!

Flush to test, and there you go.

Brilliant job. Very impressed.

You big wimp!

Leaving the bowels of the building,

there are plenty of jobs to do on the outside, too.

And one of them involves a secret weapon.

Meet Jay, our second maintenance hero,

and his Harris hawk, Leo.

MUSIC: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Theme by Ennio Morricone

What is Leo's job at this hospital?

Basically, a deterrent to the pigeons.

Leo's job is to stop the pigeons from living on-site.

And why don't we want pigeons living on-site?

We don't want them to be pooing into

-the filtration systems for the hospital.

-Right!

Cos it's a sterile environment, and we want to keep it clean.

So, you don't want poo in your air conditioning system.

That would definitely be a code Brown, Xand.

Jay releases Leo to fly around the hospital.

As a bird of prey,

he scares off the pigeons and other birds so they disappear sharpish.

JAY WHISTLES

OK, here he comes. Wow!

Now, it's my turn, and I'm a little nervous.

I actually feel genuinely quite terrified.

He's going to land on my hand, we hope.

HE WHISTLES

Well done, Xand!

He obviously likes you!

This is completely magical.

I think you've got the best job in the world, Jay.

Good job, Leo.

Now, it's time for The Challenge

with our third maintenance hero, Ian.

Ian, tell us what our challenge is.

For today's takeover challenge, we're going to head to the roof.

The roof at Alder Hey is a 24 metre high eco-roof.

Full of wild flowers and, just like other gardens,

this one needs to be weeded.

It's a very special roof,

and it needs maintaining in a very special way.

And that's via abseil.

Yikes!

To make it a fair challenge,

Ian has planted five dead flowers for us to collect,

whilst lowering ourselves down on special safety ropes.

He who collects the most flowers wins.

It's head-to-head extreme gardening.

OK? Let's get ready.

We need the right gear and the right skills.

Ian and his team do this all the time,

but we have to learn the ropes that keep us safe on the steep

and highly dangerous slopes of the hospital roof.

Old Doctor Xand is just going to have to rise to the occasion,

and I think I'm going to come out of this smelling of roses!

Xand! Xand!

The roof's this way.

Not a good start.

I'm off.

And let me tell you, I know a thing or two about flowers.

Look at that! There's some red campion.

You don't see that very often.

There's a couple of ribwort plantain,

of course, that's a perennial herb,

found all over the UK.

Oh, no!

I've missed one!

No! Got to pay more attention.

Right, now it's my turn.

-Ready?

-My plan is to focus and get the job done.

Lock it up.

This is easy. That's my first one in the bag.

Next flower. And my second is not far behind.

What about you, Xand?

I've got my first one!

There's no stopping me now.

Two down,

and hello, flower number three.

Hang on, Xand, I'm right behind you.

Focus, focus.

Aha, I'm storming ahead now!

One more to find.

Some knapweed, a few cornflowers.

Oh! I almost missed that one.

I really need Chris to miss his final flower.

Too late! I've done it!

I think I can still win.

Surely, Ian will be impressed with my flower knowledge?

Let's see, shall we?

Ian, how did we do?

It's got to be the man that had his mind on the job,

and collected all five flowers. Chris.

Yes! It shows the importance, Xand,

of staying focused while you're working in a hazardous environment.

Now, we've seen how important the work is

of Ian and the maintenance team

in keeping the building looking great and working well.

But you know what, Chris? Even you didn't do a perfect job.

I think work like this is definitely best left to the experts.

Thanks very much, Ian, we had a brilliant day.

Thanks, guys.

Meet Ruby, Hayden, Holly, and Tola.

We're following them across the series

as they let us know what it's like to be a regular hospital outpatient.

They've given us exclusive access to their lives

as they undergo treatment.

Ruby has leukaemia,

a type of cancer which means she has too many white blood cells.

Last time, we saw Ruby having a treatment

called chemotherapy at home.

Chemotherapy is a medicine which kills cancer cells.

But not everything can be done at home.

Today I am going on an adventure!

What?

To a tropical island.

Really?

No, she's pulling your leg.

Ruby's come to hospital.

When I first came in, they said, you'll always be in room 12.

-Did they?

-Yes.

Well, room 12 it is!

She's here for a lumbar puncture.

A small needle is put into

Ruby's lower spine to give her a dose of chemotherapy

to protect her spinal fluid and brain from cancer cells.

The treatment is helping to fix Ruby,

but she has to deal with some tricky side effects.

This is Ruby a year ago.

Now, steroid medicine has made Ruby's face temporarily swell up,

and the chemotherapy has made her lose her hair.

You still look great, Ruby!

But it will grow back.

Bon appetit.

And she's at risk of getting an infection,

so Ruby has other treatments to keep her healthy.

What's happening now, Ruby?

We are near the end of our transfusion.

This is a top up of healthy blood.

And what's the yellow stuff, Ruby?

-Custard!

-Custard? Really!

-Yummy!

No. She's got you again.

This is a bag of platelets.

And they are for repairing scabs.

So, if I didn't have this and I had a cut,

it wouldn't repair very quickly.

Two weeks of treatment later, Ruby has some news.

I don't know whether you can see, but my hair is coming back.

That's brilliant, Ruby.

-So, that's a good day for you?

-Yeah.

-So you must be feeling very pleased.

-Yes.

Good. I'm wondering if we should replace old Doctor Xand with you.

You get on some green scrubs,

we could sort you out with a job.

Oi!

Think about that, Doctor Xand.

-Thanks, Ruby.

-Bye!

-Bye!

-Bye-bye!

-See you soon, Ruby.

Earlier, Jamie came into the emergency department

with a sore neck.

Let's find out what the doctors do next.

Jamie was airlifted to the accident and emergency department

by helicopter.

He'd been playing rugby.

He was chasing down the ball and on the verge of scoring an amazing try.

Everyone was hot on his heels!

But he landed on his neck,

and everyone else piled in on top of him.

Until Doctor Julie knows how bad his injury is,

Jamie can't be moved, so the X-ray machine is coming to him.

Don't worry, you don't need to do anything,

you just need to lie there, all right?

Not a problem. He's stuck down to the bed.

What's the final score, Doctor Julie?

The X-ray shows there's no bone injury,

he just has got pain on the right side of his neck over the muscle,

which would fit with a kind of whiplash injury,

when your head is thrown forward and back.

In your neck, you have lots of muscles,

which are attached to your bones with tendons.

A sudden impact can tear these tendons and muscles.

It's called whiplash, and it can be painful, but it will heal.

Brilliant! So, there's no damage to your bones or spinal cord.

-What do you think of that, Jamie?

-I'm relieved.

And after a bite to eat, Jamie can go home.

But watch out, dad's got his eye on that sandwich!

Have you learned any lessons from today?

Try and get on the ball a bit earlier,

before anyone else gets on it.

Top tactics.

Good luck with your next match.

Bye!

Still to come...

We get a bit gobby... Let the chewing begin!

What? This isn't fair.

I check out a gory graze...

Now, which foot did you hurt?

And we meet a right dummy.

Josh, we've given you some medicine into your veins,

how are you feeling now?

But first...

Wow! That's amazing. And a bit gross.

And now, to our lab.

But this time, we've hidden it in a top-secret location.

So secret that in fact,

even Doctor Xand doesn't know where it is.

I am lymph-node man!

It's time for some amazing experiments.

Just don't try anything you see here at home.

Today, we're going to show you why you need spit, or saliva,

as we doctors say.

Spit, dribble, slobber, whatever you call it,

saliva really is wonderful stuff.

And it's important for keeping our mouths healthy and clean.

But where does it come from?

Well, to help us discover that,

we need the help of a gleeker.

A what?

A gleeker. You know what a gleeker is.

Yes, I do know what a gleeker is, I mean,

of course I know what a gleeker is.

I just don't think we have one.

You know, in the cupboard of everything.

That isn't a problem, Xand. Leave it to me.

Attention, everyone, this is Doctor Chris.

Would any gleekers in the hospital

please make their way to the secret lab immediately.

That is all.

Now, we just need to wait.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Come in?

-Hi, Chris.

-Hi, Jack.

I heard you needed a gleeker.

In that case, you can...do that thing that gleeker do?

I think it would just be easier if I show you, Xand.

Great. Gleek away!

Xand! Wait! You're going to need these.

-What, what for?

-For the gleeking!

Oh, the gleeking, yes, of course.

Of course I need these for the, er, the gleeking.

Stand back. Gleek away!

BOTH: Wow!

That's amazing!

I think we need to see that one more time in slow motion.

Jack is doing this in the name of science, but remember,

we're in the Don't Try This At Home Lab.

Got it?

When Jack gleeks,

he's squirting saliva from his submandibular salivary gland

out through a duct under his tongue called the Wharton duct.

And that's it right there.

So you have two other sets of saliva glands.

Your parotids, which sit here and release saliva into your cheeks,

and your sublingual glands,

which release saliva under your tongue.

Well, thank you, Jack, to you and your amazing saliva glands.

You're very welcome. Which is the quickest way out of here?

The quickest way is that door on the right.

OK.

Now we've got a gleeker in the cupboard of everything!

Whether you can gleek or not,

you do have the same salivary glands as Jack.

Why do you need saliva?

As well as keeping your mouth fresh and healthy,

saliva has another very important job.

It helps you eat and swallow.

It's 99% water, but there's a magic 1%

containing mucus,

which is what makes saliva slippery and slimy, and helps you swallow.

Now, if you want to know what this 1% magic mix

does to the water in your saliva,

this is something you CAN try at home.

Wash your hands and then take a pinch of saliva

between your thumb and forefinger, like this.

And then, if you lift your thumb and finger apart, very slowly,

what you can see is a strand of mucus with little beads on it.

Now, that is made by long protein molecules,

and that's what makes the water thick,

and helps it act as a lubricant for food.

So, to show you how amazing your mucus-y saliva is, I bring you,

the spit slide challenge!

Xand and I have a bowl each with some teeth

to chew up this plate of food.

We're going to chew up the food, put it in our mouth,

and send it down the tubes that goes from our mouths to our stomachs.

There is only one twist and that is,

only one of us will have a bottle of saliva.

And that one is me.

-Me!

-It's me.

-It's me.

No me, I'm going to have it.

Well, that bloke looks just like you?

Does he? So he does!

Let the chewing begin.

What? This isn't fair!

Get on with it.

Xand's adding some saliva to his bowl of chewed food.

Exactly what happens in your mouth.

But I don't have any for mine.

Without saliva, chewing up my food is immensely difficult.

It's just formed a big solid mass in my mouth.

Thanks to saliva, my bowl of food is turning into a nice, slimy paste.

Time to get it down the hatch!

There you go.

Yes!

Look at how my food mixed with saliva slides down easily,

but check out Chris's.

Without saliva, my food gets stuck in the throat

instead of sliding to the stomach.

Chris, you've got to stop.

He's choking!

He didn't even get to eat his tomatoes yet.

Well, you know what this means.

What, Chris is in danger?

No! That I'm the winner of the spit slide challenge.

Thanks to saliva.

Thanks, saliva.

We've shown that you can produce around one litre of saliva every day

from three sets of salivary glands.

But remember, spitting is unhygienic.

And we've shown you that it's also really important

for helping you swallow safely.

You know what, Chris?

I was thinking about Jack the gleeker and I kind of thought,

"I bet I'm really good at that."

What, Xand?

A couple of minutes ago you didn't even know what gleeking was,

and now you think you can do it?

All right, all right, give it your best shot.

Ha-ha!

That's disgusting!

And very impressive.

How did he learn to do that?

Let's meet another Ouch patient.

-Can you hear me?

-Loud and clear.

It's Tola, he has a kidney disease.

Soon, I'll be getting a transplant.

Last time, we met up with Tola in hospital, having dialysis treatment.

I'm on the dialysis machine to clean my blood

and to help my kidneys function more.

But Tola also looks after his kidneys at home.

Hello, this is my sister and this is my brother.

-BOTH: Hello, there.

-Hi.

-This is my mum.

-Hi, Mum.

And here's my dad.

Hi, Dad.

Family mealtimes are a bit different for Tola,

because there are some things he can't eat.

I'm not allowed to eat some things with too much potassium,

like potato, banana, mango, and stuff like that.

Lots of foods are full of potassium.

It's an important mineral that helps your body to work properly.

But for Tola, too much or too little can make him unwell.

If I have too much potassium,

I could start vomiting again.

And if I have too low, I could start vomiting also,

so I have to keep a balanced diet.

Any food you miss, Tola?

It's got to be the chicken and chips.

Ooh, I don't blame you.

Tola also has to be very careful not to drink too much.

Cheers, Tola.

Anything else to tell us?

That's a wrap!

See you next time!

Your body is amazing, but sometimes, it needs fixing.

All over the UK, there are special teams of professionals

trained to tackle medical mysteries.

And when the problem is an emergency,

there's one team in particular standing by to help.

The emergency department.

It's one of the busiest departments in the hospital,

treating and fixing over 1,000 patients a week.

But how does it work?

Well, I'm going to find out.

Inside the emergency department,

there is a whole team of professionals

ready to deal with whatever comes through the door.

And it all starts with triage.

Working there today is Nurse Natalie Nolan.

Triage is a French word meaning, "To separate out."

What's happened?

That's exactly what Nurse Nat does,

by separating out the most urgent patients

and prioritising their treatment.

Any child comes in,

I'll look at them and assess who needs seeing first, basically.

Nurse Nat's checking ten-year-old Dan,

who's been brought in by his mum with an eye infection.

Dan, how are you feeling at the moment?

My eye's a bit itchy, like.

-Can you see OK?

-Yes.

As Dan's eye infection is not too serious,

he's a low priority patient.

His eye needs sorting, but not immediately.

Thank you.

So he'll have to wait

whilst more urgent patients are treated before him.

This is Doctor Charlotte Durand.

She's the consultant in charge today.

This is a really tricky job, and it's even trickier

when the waiting room is packed full of people.

Does everyone who turns up have an emergency?

Um, no, they don't. We get a lot of people come here

who could be seen elsewhere in a much better environment,

more suited to the problem they've got, really.

Alder Hey Hospital will never turn patients away,

but what is a real emergency?

Reckon you know?

Quiz time!

Which one of the following should you come to A&E with?

The answer is none of them.

It was a trick question.

If necessary, for all these things, you can go to your GP.

Don't bring your verruca to the emergency room,

because when you break your leg or you're in a car crash,

you'll be very pleased that other kids with verrucas

are not taking up the time of the doctors and nurses,

and the team's here when you need that leg seeing to.

However, if you're sick enough to be brought to hospital by ambulance,

you're an urgent priority, and you're brought straight here.

This is Resus, which is short for resuscitation.

And in this room,

there's loads of life-saving medical equipment,

and it's all to help the doctors and nurses look after people

with life-threatening illnesses or injuries.

To make sure Resus is prepared for anything,

they practise various medical scenarios twice a week.

I'm going to join them on this dummy run.

Ooh, Chris, you do look a bit peaky.

That's not me, I'm over here!

Today's dummy patient is 15-year-old Josh.

Hello, Josh, my name's Pete, I'm one of the doctors,

we're going to be looking after you today, OK?

He's been feeling really short of breath over the last few hours,

so his mum's called an ambulance.

Using her phone to help control the scenario,

Doctor Charlotte assesses how the team performs

and plays the role of the patient.

Ooh, I'm really struggling.

-Where's my mum?

-It's really nerve-racking, actually.

You guys are doing a very good simulation...

-Other way.

-Other way, OK, sorry.

To make the scenario as realistic as possible for the doctors and nurses,

they even use real medicine.

Then they know where to find the drugs,

where to find the equipment, how to set it up,

in a safe environment where they're not under pressure.

Josh, we've given you some medicine into your veins,

how are you feeling now?

I feel like I'm getting better.

OK, that's great news.

These scenarios are invaluable training

for staff who have to be ready for any eventuality.

Charlotte, from your point of view, how did we all do?

I thought you all did an excellent job.

Josh, thanks very much for being involved today.

I think the whole team learned a huge amount from you.

The emergency department is an amazing place,

but it's an ever-changing situation.

So some of the patients who come here have life-threatening illnesses

or injuries, but every second of every day,

there are nurses and doctors like Charlotte

ready to handle whatever comes through the door.

Let's go back to accident and emergency

to see what happened to our next patient.

You are not going to believe this one.

Why not? Did you make it up?

What? No. It's just a figure of speech.

-It's an expression.

-OK.

This is five-year-old Tiana, with her mum and a poorly foot.

And check out this handsome doctor!

-Hmmm.

-Now, which foot did you hurt?

-Was it this one?

-No, this one.

Oh, silly old Doctor Chris, eh?

So how did you hurt it?

When my mum was riding the bike,

and my foot got caught in the wheel.

Wow. That does sound very careless of your mum.

Naughty mum. Let's look at this in detail.

It was a gorgeous sunny day.

So Tiana and her mum were out for a bike ride.

Sounds lovely.

Tiana had the best view from the back-seat,

whilst Mum was doing all the pedalling at the front.

Even better!

But it all went wrong as they got to a roundabout.

Oh, no! Did she do the same as you, the other week?

-Um...

-You know,

when the pigeon pooped on your head and you got in such a flap,

you ended up face first in the fountain?

No, Xand. And you promised never to tell anyone.

Oops.

Anyway, Tiana's foot fell down off the seat

and it got caught in the spokes of the wheel.

BOTH: Ouch!

OK. Mum's off the hook.

But that bike has a lot to answer for.

First up, Tiana heads to X-ray to be checked for broken bones.

Finished. Wow.

That was speedy.

While Tiana has a quick pit stop...

..here comes Doctor Rob McGuire to assess the damage.

All the veins seem clear, there was nothing obvious to see on the X-ray.

Excellent. The bones are intact.

But it's still hurting, isn't it, Tiana?

My foot is really sore.

It might take a week or so for her to get back to normality.

The wound gets a good clean and a plaster.

But amazingly, the best treatment here

is to let your body fix itself.

Your skin has a whole battle plan worked out.

Sticky blood cells called platelets rush to the wound

and clump together to stop the bleeding.

Then a protein called fibrin holds everything together

with fibres, like scaffolding, and it goes hard to form a scab.

Underneath, new skin cells are made,

pushing off the scab, and you're as good as new.

So, what have we learned here, Chris?

Be careful next time you're on the bike, Mum!

-I will!

-Can you give me five?

BOTH: Bye, Tiana!

Next time, on "Operation Ouch!" Hospital Takeover,

there's a clash with some glass...

There is a small piece in her chest.

We're on the lookout...

What are you doing?!

And it's party time.

So we'll see you next time on "Operation Ouch!"

Mr Grumbles!

Mr Grumbles!

HE SNORES

Xand?

Xand...

-Xand!

-Ah!

What are you and Mr Grumbles doing asleep in the lab,

and why are you clutching a bottle of... Is that dribble?

Today, we've learned that... something has happened.