Chapter 642: Transferred Away
Chapter 642: Chapter 642: Transferred Away
Evelyn Ford usually seemed approachable, but when her expression turned cold, she was more terrifying than a bandit. She had blood on her hands, and a murderous glint in her eyes. Fiona Fletcher was so frightened by her tirade that her eyes welled up with tears.
"Dr. Ford, I have no one to rely on now. My dad is gone, and I’m all alone in Eldoria. If I lose this job, how will I survive? Please, just help me this one time. How about this? I’ll study childbirth techniques with you. I have the basics down, and in less than six months, I’ll definitely be able to handle deliveries and perform surgeries on my own. I just need six months, that’s all."
’Unless she’s a medical genius, how could she possibly learn to perform a C-section in six months?’ Assisting with natural births wasn’t that difficult. In the past, when times were tough, women gave birth at home, usually with the help of an experienced midwife.
"Dr. Fletcher, there are over a hundred pregnant women in this medical tent. The idea that you want me to be responsible for all of them, including your share, is absurd. You do an assistant’s work, take a doctor’s stipend, and still want to keep your position as a doctor? This isn’t your personal playground; this is Eldoria. You won’t find any saints or saviors here. And another thing—you’re twenty-eight years old. Your father was a surgeon, and you’ve been his assistant for years, yet you still gag at the sight of a patient having a bowel movement during labor. Do you really think you’ll be ready for the operating table in six months? You’re dealing with pregnant women, not some frog or rabbit in a lab." Evelyn’s words were venomous, piercing right through Fiona Fletcher’s selfish little scheme.
Yolanda Lawrence, Jane Warren, and Nina York stood in the back, not daring to move a muscle. They never expected Dr. Fletcher to be a fake.
They were even more surprised that the two, who seemed to be getting along just a few hours ago, had turned on each other so quickly. Dr. Ford, who looked so gentle and kind, had words as sharp as a knife, showing no mercy. And Fiona Fletcher, who seemed so nice, was actually capable of such scheming.
The three of them quietly backed away, not daring to get involved.
Evelyn Ford picked up her medical kit and prepared to leave, but Fiona Fletcher stepped forward to block her way.
"Dr. Ford, are you really not going to help me? I thought we were good friends."
"Since when?" Evelyn replied coldly. As she spoke, she slapped Fiona Fletcher’s hand away and walked off without a backward glance.
Fiona Fletcher was both furious and anxious. She wanted to ask Yolanda Lawrence and the others to put in a good word for her with Evelyn, but to her surprise, none of the three dared to help her.
As luck would have it, the team leader came over just then to inspect the medical tent, and a frightened Fiona Fletcher quickly hid.
Meanwhile, as soon as Evelyn Ford entered her space, she headed straight to the lab to produce the special medicine. To her, Fiona Fletcher was just a colleague. Whether she stayed or left was none of her business. But since Fiona wanted to make a patsy out of her, Evelyn, who wasn’t exactly patient herself, was certainly not going to let her get away with it.
She busied herself in the lab for two hours until a thousand pills of the special medicine were fresh off the line. She placed the pills on a sieve to cool before bottling them. By the time she finished and came out, it was time for dinner again.
Ronan Kendrick and Liam Sterling had gone to deliver supplies again and hadn’t returned yet. A pleasant aroma wafted from the kitchen. Evelyn quickly went back to her bedroom to take a shower. At eight in the evening, Officer Graham and the others put down their hoes and came in from the medicinal herb field.
Quincy was on the verge of collapse, his steps unsteady and weak, as if he could faint at any moment. "I’ve been digging up gastrodia tubers all day, and I’m dead tired. They look so much like potatoes, but they’re harder to dig up. I broke so many of them today."
"Gastrodia can be stewed with chicken. It’s very nourishing."
"Stew some, then. I need to recharge." Quincy’s weak voice reached the kitchen, and Taylor Vance promptly added another dish to the menu.
Evelyn went to look at the gastrodia tubers they had dug up that day. Things grown in the black soil really were superior. A single tuber weighed over twenty pounds, and the quality was excellent—on par with wild-grown ones and possessing high medicinal value.
After inspecting the medicinal herbs, Evelyn leisurely walked back to the wooden cabin. The others had gone to wash up, leaving only Zoe and Annie playing Gomoku in the living room.
Just then, Ronan Kendrick and Liam Sterling appeared out of nowhere, startling the three of them.
"What’s wrong?"
"Dr. Ford, there was a woman skulking around outside our vehicle. Mr. Kendrick and I had just gotten back when she stopped us. She said she was looking for you, then burst into a blubbering mess, wailing about all her hardships. We were completely baffled."
Evelyn guessed who it was.
"Is she still there?"
"She left. Mr. Kendrick told her if she didn’t go, he’d get the team leader to have her dragged away. She ran off right after that. Dr. Ford, do you know her?"
"I do. She’s a colleague from the medical tent who just arrived two days ago. The team leader said she was a doctor, but I discovered today during a delivery that she isn’t one. She’s just a physician’s assistant. She wants to keep the doctor title and all the stipends, so she begged me to cover for her inability to handle deliveries or perform surgery. I refused."
Liam Sterling frowned. "She’d lie about something like that? Performing surgery isn’t like planting vegetables; she’d be exposed so easily. And she had the nerve to ask you to cover for her? There have been a lot of people like that lately. To get more stipends, they register for positions in several different departments. Once they’re found out, regardless of age or gender, they’re all sent to the mining district to smelt iron."
"Dr. Ford, let me handle this."
Evelyn nodded. "Okay."
Ronan Kendrick kept staring at Evelyn. From his gaze, she sensed a hint of danger.
"Liam will handle it," he said.
’I’m genuinely worried there’s going to be an extra corpse at the base tomorrow morning.’
Ronan’s lips curved slightly. "Am I that vicious?"
’He’s more than just vicious.’
Evelyn smiled. "You’re the best."
The next day, when Evelyn went to the medical tent, Fiona Fletcher had already been transferred. The team leader brought in a male doctor who wore a pair of worn-out glasses, wasn’t tall, and was rather thin. He looked to be around forty-five years old. It was said that before the apocalypse, he had worked in a hospital’s OB/GYN department for several years.
The new doctor’s name was Toby Turner. At first, the pregnant women were unwilling to let Dr. Turner treat them or deliver their babies, simply because he was a man. But the base didn’t have enough doctors, and Evelyn couldn’t work around the clock, so they had no choice but to accept it.
After a few deliveries, everyone came to recognize Dr. Turner’s skills.
As for Fiona Fletcher, she was transferred back to her previous medical tent. The team leader didn’t elaborate on her situation, but from that day on, Evelyn never saw her again.
The base had very few doctors. To train more, Rhys Chase issued a notice: all boys and girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen could sign up at the base camp to study medicine.
He found three older doctors specifically to teach these children.
As an unofficial member of the medical department, Evelyn was also invited to teach. After thinking about it for two days, she accepted the invitation. After all, she only had to teach one class a day. Besides, quickly training a new batch of students would not only alleviate the base’s doctor shortage but also allow her to retire sooner and go back to farming in her space.
Because of Evelyn’s relationship with Ronan, Rhys Chase assigned them a small house with a yard. Once the house was built, they would be able to move in.