Don't give me dancing bloody nurses

 Much is said by our useless political leaders that we should be more productive. They tell us that the NHS is the ‘envy of the world’; either they are deluded or they are trying to manipulate us. 

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Around the beginning of March Viv started to experience pain and discomfort when swallowing. Initially she thought it might be a sore throat type virus; swallowing issues being a complication with one of the conditions that Viv has, I mentioned it to a support nurse at one of the hospitals supporting Viv, who suggested we should contact the GP.

That would have involved the ritual of the 8am humiliation by telephone; we decided to put this off for a week or two to see if the problem went away.

Viv saw a dentist in mid-March, to whom we mentioned the problem. She couldn’t see any problem, and also suggested contacting the GP.

To engage with a GP these days involves careful management of one’s diary: you have put aside an hour or so to call starting at 8, then be available for them to ring back at any time that day. Where we live we have poor mobile phone signals, and Viv can’t easily manage a mobile either, so we have to ask to be called on our landline - and stay in all day. (We also wouldn’t want to discuss our medical issues on the train, thank you.) (Note to J. Hunt Esq: not getting timed appointments for a GP really makes it difficult for people to do things - including work!) Viv and I identified a Monday in late March to phone the GP.

At 8am that day we duly phoned, got the ‘unobtainable’ tone, redialed and repeated about a hundred times. We then listened to two minutes of recorded messages telling us how busy the surgery was and how, if we pressed the wrong number, we would have to redial again because the phone system is not up to transferring callers. Eventually we were ‘position seven’ in the queue to speak to a receptionist; around 8.35 we spoke to her for less than a minute, she took a few details and told us a doctor would call us back. 

The doctor - a young locum -  called about 11.00, we told her the problem; she asked Viv to see her, we went in, she diagnosed reflux and prescribed a PPI. At that point the diagnosis did make some sense to me.

Two weeks later, however, it was clear that there was more wrong than a bit of reflux. Viv had got to the point of occasionally being unable to swallow even fluids - fruit juice and yoghurt. Concerned, we phoned again and were told by a different young locum that we had to give the tablets four weeks to work. 

Viv spent the next two weeks surviving on fluids only. After one week I called the GP again to get her tablets changed (she couldn’t swallow some of them), which the grumpy partner I spoke to reluctantly agreed to. 

As soon as the four weeks were up I called again and a GP arranged an endoscopy at the local hospital; this happened at the end of April. They also booked an ultrasound and some blood tests to be done at the hospital; not on the same day, of course, that’s not possible. We cleared our diaries on three separate days for these tests.

At the first endoscopy the surgeon seemed rather surprised and apologised. He didn’t have the right kit for the job; he had been led to believe the problem was in Viv’s stomach, when it was actually in her throat. He booked another one, and a CT scan.

Viv had that second endoscopy last Thursday, which was moderately successful; but there was still no booked CT scan. On Friday I called radiology to chase it up; apparently the form had not been filled in correctly. I engaged the local PALS team, who very promptly chased it up and a slot was found for the scan on Saturday. 

After the endoscopy Viv’s swallowing did improve; however, she was experiencing a lot of pain in her chest. We had been warned to expect some, so did not think this usual; it was on Sunday evening that I became more worried: Viv was very tired, and seemed to be perspiring a lot, yet was cold. At twenty past ten her hands began to shake, so much that she could not hold a glass of water.

It didn’t look like a seizure; I called NHS 111 for help. I spoke to an operator, mentioning the symptoms and that Viv had had an endoscopy with sedation recently, and she took a few more details and said she’d arrange for a nurse to call me back. In the meantime Viv’s shaking settled and she became sleepy.

Around eleven NHS 111 called, the nurse ran through and discussed Viv’s condition. She suggested it might be an infection, and recommended Viv take an LFT test in case it was Covid. She also arranged for the GP to call.

The next day we were supposed to be going on holiday to the coast. Fortunately, Viv awoke feeling much brighter and we felt no concern preparing to travel. Out taxi was booked for 9.30, but was late; at 9.35 the phone rang, it was a young locum - I think the second one we had spoken to before - at our GP surgery. I ran through what had happened the night before, and mentioned the endoscopy. He suggested to monitor Viv, if the problem recurred to get back in touch with the surgery.

We caught the 11.30 train from Liverpool Street; just as it was leaving Viv’s phone rang. It was buried amongst bits and pieces and we missed the call. I checked for a message; it was the endoscopist we had seen the previous Thursday, saying that he or a nurse would call back, which he did, half an hour later. ‘Viv needs to be in hospital’, he said. ‘I’m getting a bed arranged for her this afternoon.’ 

Our holiday plans had to go on hold; he alighted at the next station and headed back, enduring a journey made all the worse by unhelpful tube ticket collectors (whose barriers did not like our tickets or our luggage), and trains cancelled because the poor train drivers, on £60K or so, feel they are hard done by. 

Four hours later we got to the hospital and were told that, even though they had asked Viv to go there and I’d been told they had a bed for her, she needed to be assessed in A&E. We waited there for three and a half hours; Viv was at least allowed to sit (I had to stand, the chairs are for patients only). We were rescued by the consultant who had phoned earlier, who took us up to the ward and explained that there was an issue that had arisen from the endoscopy which had shown up on the scan: Viv needed antibiotics and to be checked in a day or two. The condition explained her shaking episode the night before, and, without treatment, could be life threatening. All being well she will be out in a couple of days; we haven’t cancelled our holiday booking, we hope to go down by the weekend. 

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It's not difficult to see how this could have been a much more structured, controlled experience. Our holiday for this week has been booked for age; but, I would argue, Viv’s (second) endoscopy should also have taken place ages ago:

• If the GP surgery had a better appointment system we would have felt able to contact them earlier

• If the GP had listened to our complaints that the PPI was not working they might have arranged an endoscopy earlier

• If the GP had advised the hospital that it was a ‘throat’ issue the hospital would have booked the right kit for Viv’s first endoscopy it would have been progressed earlier

Then, even if the problem that required Viv to be in for a couple of days had arisen, we would still have been able to enjoy our full holiday. 

I would also have felt more in control if we didn’t have to endure such ludicrous queuing processes - the phone nonsense at the GP, the admissions process at the hospital. Both seem designed to create havoc in their respective departments, and delay patients getting treatment; both also could be easy things to change should the government provide the ‘more money’ NHS supporters always seem to want; arguably, improvements could be made at little cost to both.

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How does this whole saga leave me feeling? Right now, at home when I should have been on holiday I feel lost, alone, confused; unable to control my life, much as if I had just been falsely arrested and thrown into prison. I am sure Viv feels likewise. Ah, but of course the NHS is doing this ‘for your own good’, the elite will tell us, metaphorically patting the heads of us illiterate, Brexit-voting, white, middle-aged peasants. 

‘It’s for your own good,’ was what the Nazi’s told the Jews when they shipped them off to the gas chamber, telling them they were to be showered.

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Writing those last few words, I know they will be controversial. But the arrogance of those in charge who tell us that ‘The NHS is the envy of the world’ when they know it isn’t, is, in my view, beginning to rival the arrogance of the Nazis; the two lies may not share the same immediate consequences, but their deliberate and systematic telling of falsehoods known to be false that may have lethal consequences with the objective of improving the teller’s status is, in my view, just as evil. 

It isn’t the problem from the endoscopy that causes me stress (although there is an argument, I believe, that consultants experience similar time-consuming frustrations as patients in ‘our NHS’, and fewer surgical errors might happen if they found it easier to do their job), it is the amount of time that I have had to set aside in my and Viv’s lives to suit the way the NHS works. Whole days have to be set aside just to talk to a GP. Tests - even blood samples - cannot be done locally, we have to go to the hospital, and they can’t all be done on the same day - so each takes up the best part of a day. I can't pursue my hobbies. I can’t go on holiday. There is no way I could hold down a job. If a state-funded health service had any purpose it would surely be to see that citizens could go about their lives, earning or spending money (i.e. boosting the economy), as much as possible. ‘Our NHS’ has exactly the opposite effect.

Viv and I are not the only ones impacted: A&E waiting rooms, and the ‘virtual’ queues for GP appointments, are full of ordinary people who wouldn’t be there if the NHS had dealt with them competently, efficiently and using processes based around the needs of the patients, rather than wishes of politicians or the ideas of self-aggrandising managers.  

The NHS seems to have become a means for structuring society, and controlling the working class. The objective of NHS managers is to increase the size of their department; in exchange, they allow the government to use it to deliver societal messaging and, indeed, manage the people. It is a political tool just as the Gestapo was; if you think that to be an extreme statement, remember how it was weaponised during the pandemic, used as a means to lock us all in our houses and shame those who refused a ‘safe and effective’ vaccine, or dared not wear a mask. 

Our health needs to be removed from the political / managerial sphere. I don’t want an ignorant politician, civil servant or left-leaning public-sector manager deciding what I need, or deserve, by way of a health service. 

Oh, and I don’t want dancing bloody nurses on Tiktok, or at events like the Olympics, or ‘clap for carers’; am I the only person who has spotted the similarity between those and the sort of thing the CCP produce today, or the Nazis did eighty years ago?