Day to day musings of a cat minder/ sitter in North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne . For details of services go to http://www.catminders.biz

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Thursday 2 April 2009

What is the point of it ?

Although no longer raging about lemon curd , and whilst one does not wish to be perpetually ranting about something , the NHS takes the biscuit this morning . D attends for the second time in a month , hopeful that today the consultant will have received the x ray results from our local hospital required for a decision about the next step cardio vascuarly. ( which any doctor worth his salt and not overstretched into the bargain would have got hold of prior the consultation a month ago ) . In effect : Carbon copy of last month's consult . Registrar looks at patient. Opens file . Scan results still not there . Informs patient that they will now give up on waiting for scan results from local hospital and conduct their own scan . No mention of comment made last time that reason for not conducting scan that day was because of " slight risk to kidneys " .
Informs patient he will receive invite to attend for scan in four to six weeks . Goodbye . A simple phone call or e mail to "the patient" this morning could have saved him and the doctor the bother of the entire fiction of the consultation itself . What is the point of it ? I think that is my mood today ? What is the point of any of it ?

I wonder to myself whether in his place I would have grabbed the file and rung the local hospital myself and volunteered to drive over there myself to collect the scan results . These are admin support tasks and hardly rocket science .
As a general rule I am mild mannered , polite and careful not to offend those who are not responsible for the things which annoy me . But there is a place for speaking out and my medical notes have a sprinkling of comment ( mine ) and certainly on one occasion a letter of complaint ( mine ) concerning a very inappropriate remark made by a professor who should have known better and indeed had the good sense to send by return of post a fulsome apology .

I have since sometimes watched doctors as they quickly scan "the notes" glance at this correspondence and then look again at me and rub their chins thoughtfully . And , to be frank , I am glad that there is something causing some slight hesitation before their pronouncments , or I am ordered off for the latest round of brain scans , or bone scans or whatever it might be . And in my less bleak moments , I remember the kindness of individuals within the system , who have held my hand , and shown their true concern and fluffed up my pillows and come back to my hospital bed long after I thought they had gone home , to bring a pain killer or tell me about a phone call I had received or just to prop me up a bit better or , in one case , give me a tea towel I had requested to wrap round my eyes when the light was bothering me so much . No matter how bad the system is , there will always be the individuals within it . And maybe that's the point . Just today , for a few reasons , its hard to remember that all the time .

Oh , and in case anyone is interested . My wonderful daughter pointed out that I didn't "lose" the lemon curd . That when you have guests staying , you expect them to eat things like jam . That our Young Americans more than likely used it with their breakfast croissants . Mystery solved ! I've stopped looking in the bathroom cabinet ( both my sister and Bettejo suggested this was where it would be ... ) and I've put aside the short story detective idea ( Silliyak .. ) . To the next mystery ?

2 comments:

BetteJo said...

I still love the bathroom cabinet for 'lost' things! And lemon curd? Yummy. Girl I work with made some kind of shortbread cookies with lemon curd as the filling. TOO yummy!

As for the medical community - I think attempting to appreciate the individuals within it is a very admirable approach to take. If you can do it. Sometimes it's tough though, eh? Yeah.

Silliyak said...

I would absolutely demand the return of your biscuit! What are you going to put your lemon curd on? (When you get some more that is)

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