The Night Clinic

The walk-in clinic sits beside a rain-slick bus depot in Inverness, its strip lights buzzing over scuffed lino and a waiting room that smells of damp wool and disinfectant. It’s 11:40 p.m. You’re the locum doctor taking over the last shift; the regular clinician has left early, and the clinic’s phone won’t stop ringing. An ambulance diversion has sent more patients your way, but the electronic records system keeps crashing and there’s no second doctor on site.

Moira MacInnes, a nurse in her late forties, is sorting paper charts with one hand and holding pressure on a patient’s bleeding forearm with the other. She’s worked this clinic for years and doesn’t hide her irritation when people waste time. The patient, Gavin Fraser, a 36-year-old delivery driver, insists the cut is all that’s wrong—while Moira says he nearly collapsed at reception. She wants your decision now: treat him here, arrange a transfer, or risk the next emergency arriving before help does. Every choice has to be made with incomplete information, a crowded waiting room, and the clock inching toward midnight.