Low Life

13 June 2009

Unkindness to strangers

‘Then what do you suggest I do?’ I said. (Now I could feel the weight of the water sloshing about in the blisters.) ‘What I suggest you do,’ said the doctor, as though happily struck by an inspiration, ‘is that you go down to one of the pubs at the end of the road and go into the gents. Put your arm under the cold tap and leave it there for half an hour.’

I looked at him.

‘Try the Crooked Billet,’ added the receptionist helpfully. ‘The toilets are nicer in there than in the other one.’

‘Let me get this right,’ I said. ‘Your advice is to find a pub and stick my arm under the tap in the gents.’ The doctor shut his mouth and nodded. The receptionist looked steadily at me. ‘It’s a wind-up, right?’ I said. They shook their heads. It wasn’t a wind-up. They were that scared of the cleaner.

I thanked them for their time, consoling myself that at least maybe I’d learnt something today about the state of my nation, noting at the same time that the small part of me which relishes pain and injury was now frantically signalling that it was having second thoughts.

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Tomas

June 11th, 2009 2:04pm Report this comment

I do so hope you send the doctor and receptionist a copy to reflect on.

Thank you for the painful laugh.

Mrs. Carole Reiss

June 12th, 2009 11:19am Report this comment

Jeremy,
this will be no consolation for you but just know that this type of reaction by doctors is not uniquely in UK. In GVA it is quite the same: I broke (in thouthad pieces because of osteoporosis) my shoulder and arm. The local hospital being overbooked by drunk thugs having fought I could not have any surgery before 10 days and they wanted to knock me out with morphine for ten days in the infected emergency unit (in the corridor). The pain was so excruciating that, finally I decided to go to a private clinic where the surgeon operated immediately (steel shoulder and arm now) and, as I am not ccovered in private clinics, invoiced the basic costs to the insurance who don't want to pay it because I SHOULD have been in agony and operated in 10 days with a probable amputation with an infection and being handicapped for life had I not decided to go in a clinic where an operating room was vacant. Here insurances prefer to pay 2 months hospiralization in a 12 people dormitory, mingling, infectious patients with others rather than pay 2 days in a clinic at the lowest price! The world has gone really mad! I find myself now with a CHF 15'000.- bill to pay for the next 5 years: they would have prefered one to be seriously hadicaped for life and pay 40'000 for a two months stay in communal room for a reason of "principle"!

Solidarity is a word unknown here.

Bridget

June 14th, 2009 4:35pm Report this comment

Doesn't surprise me I'm afraid. When an old man fell over in his front garden and could not get up again, just across the road from my local surgery, no doctor or nurse would walk across the road to help him. I had to call an ambulance and wait with him until the medics came. I couldn't lift him as I was 8 months pregnant and he was surprisingly heavy. The only people who stopped to help us were two 8 year old boys on their bikes!

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