In Which I Am Visited by the Ghosts of NHS Past, Present and Future

Yesterday, when S was driving me home, she asked me for a mention in here due to the fact that she is an avid fan of this blog. Someone has to be, I suppose. But I told her in no uncertain terms that if she wasn't going to pull over and show me her tits or do some other noteworthy thing like writing off her car, I wouldn't include her. She did neither, so I won't.


Today I had a couple of NHS encounters. Those guys just can't get enough of me. Recently, my GP had implored me to get a flu jab, saying that he would be crying himself to sleep if I shuffled off this mortal coil due to something as preventable as flu. Popped down to the Health Centre, was ushered very quickly into a room where there was a nurse and a woman who may have been a doctor, but I didn't recognise her. She asked me for my name and my doctor, and I told her my surname. I thought that would be enough as there can't have been that many people with an appointment at 11:47 who have my moniker and GP. “Do you have a first name as well?” “Nah, I'm like Madonna or Cher.” “What, you're a gay icon?” “I'd rather be a gay icon than someone who looks like their face has been on fire and been extinguished by a fork...” “You know, we could inject air into your bloodstream, you little shit, and that'll be game over for you. We'll just say you died from a stroke.” And that's why I didn't get a flu vaccination, and not because I'm afraid of needles.


My second and more accurately disclosed encounter with the NHS (I'm not afraid of needles, I'd be a terrible heroin addict if I was) was through the medium of a letter. What the NHS now tend to do is send a copy of each in-house letter regarding the patient to the patient... Transparency and all that. So today I got such a letter sent to me that was typed by Doctor Bastard, or his secretary. Anyway, whoever it was didn't seem to be willing or capable of operating the spelling and grammar function- I noticed five mistakes. I can get past that. Here are my issues with it. Firstly, it's a copy of a letter sent to a GP at my local surgery. However, it wasn't sent to MY GP. I have no idea why. Secondly, those of you who have been paying attention to this increasingly unhealthy saga will remember that since being diagnosed with probable gluten intolerance back in August, I have stayed clear of the stuff. However, and I quote Dr Bastard exactly; “...I had asked the endoscopy staff to advise him to be on a normal diet.” This never filtered through to me, so either Doctor Bastard never told Endoscopy, or they never told me. I'd prefer to think that Doctor Bastard fucked up, on account of him being a bastard. I'm no doctor, but telling someone who you think is allergic to something and has a lot of exposure to that something to carry on about their daily lives seems to carry the whiff of sadism. “We reckon you're probably allergic to peanuts and will go into anaphylactic shock if you encounter them, Mr Smith.” “Should I pack in my job down at the peanut packing plant then?” “Best not quit that, Mr Smith, as we need to find out whether our diagnosis is correct.” Or; “Hello Mr Bloggs, we think you could be fatally allergic to bees. Could you help us work out if that's the case by having sex with this hive? Sir, what are you doing?!? Please, practise safe sex and put a condom on.” Well, maybe not the second one. Thirdly, Dr Bastard writes that “...had been strictly gluten free at the time of endoscopy on 17th September 2012 which showed some changes of coeliac disease. Never mind the questionable use of “of” there, what does he mean by “some changes”? It's pretty vague for someone who specialises in this field, to say the least. Fourthly, “...we should diagnose definite coeliac disease in his case.” Well that's a suspiciously massive change to what he told me, which was a half-hearted “Pffftttt... Maybe you have it? Heads or tails?” He also spelt dietitian wrong in the letter, but that's fine because it's not like he works very close with them a lot. And finally, at the bottom of the letter he says that he has arranged an appointment with a dietitian for me, which is nice to know. What is slightly less nice is that Doctor Bastard has neglected to furnish me with salient information, such as WHEN THE BLOODY APPOINTMENT IS.



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