Series 1 Episode 14:
SURVIVAL
Written by Wally K. Daly

Ewart's wife Ros has arranged to meet him on the park bench where he proposed. She asks him to come back; Ewart laughs and she angrily walks off.
Baz is picked up from a clinic (which we later find out specializes in abortions) by a male friend and taken home. Unfortunately Charlie sees her arrive and, since the male friend takes a suitcase out of the boot, assumes the worst.
Megan's husband Ted drops her at the hospital having informed her that he had two men in the cab who were discussing the closure of the night shift. Megan runs straight in to tell Ewart, who apparently already knows.
The rumour mill is at work after Suzie saw Baz outside the abortion clinic, and soon most people know about Baz's abortion.
Sandra Mute and Andrew Ponting pick up a regular in the street. He is the father of another doctor at holby called Harriet. He has had a lot of heart trouble and while in the ambulance he asks Mute to let him go. She passes this message on to Baz who says, "It doesn't work like that". Harriet is called and again the father asks to be left to die.
The rumours about Baz reach Kuba, only he gets the wrong end of the stick and thinks that Baz has had a miscarriage. He finds some flowers and presents them to Baz in a corridor in front of Charlie. Baz flounces off and Charlie is left dumb struck by the news.
Meanwhile King is talking to a young man who is getting married the following day who is worried by something sexual. King tries to find out what and reels of a list of sexually transmitted diseases. The young man winces and says that that isn't the problem.
Harriet is still with her father, trying to explain that she can't do what he wants. But he just tells her that he wants to join her mother and isn't strong enough to do it alone.
King leaves the young man saying that he will get someone who is an expert on the problem and seeks out Charlie. King tells Charlie that he has a patient who wants to know about "making babies" and since Charlie knows all about it would he go and speak to the young man. King hasn't heard about Baz, but Charlie assumes he has and is making fun of him. He goes for King. Baz is fetched and ends the dispute by informing everyone in the room that the gossip is that she has had an abortion. Everyone but Charlie and Baz leave. They have a heart to heart in which she says that it was her body and her disicion and he says that he would have married her. She tells him that that is why she didn't tell him, because she would have been tempted and that would have been wrong too. Charlie says, "I'll never understand you." Baz replies, "No, I don't suppose you ever will." She says she knows she's made the right decision, but that it hurts, and will go on hurting for the rest of her life.
Back in resus Harriet shows her Dad a bottle and asks him if he is sure, he nods. She injects into him and shortly after he has a seizure. Mute arrives and starts to save him, Harriet begs her to stop. As other members of the team arrive Harriet is led away. Baz starts to try and bring back the old man but everyone, including Mute, is relutant to help her. In the end Baz walks away. Ewart is trying to console Harriet she says that she killed her father. She goes on to explain that although she showed him the bottle she didn't inject the drug. Ewart says that she isn't guilty of killing her father, only of wanting him dead.
At the end of the shift Ewart tells everyone that he has had some news from a friend. The bad news, he says, is that the powers that be want to shut down the night shift at once and the good news is that he intends to fight it.

Episode first broadcast Saturday 20th December 1986

Written by Claire


SERIES 1
MAIL ME! INDEX