‘Next!’ shouted the bouffant-haired lady dressed in a terrifyingly crisp green and white skirt suit. She was sitting behind the glass-screened reception desk of the private hospital where my mother had just had her knee replaced.
This formidable dame I took to be a positive sign of the excellence of a healthcare establishment where one can simply buy and have competently fitted a titanium knee, without the need to beg the state to botch you one up for free, and throw in MRSA.
This place was bright, white and sparklingly clean, and I would be happier to spend a weekend within its walls than at some budget hotels. It was nicer than a Travelodge or a Premier Inn but not quite as nice as a Ramada.
It was as nice as the sort of slightly above average quality minibreak hotel that has non-branded mini shampoos in the shower.
It was not as nice as the Princess Grace Hospital in Marylebone, but where is? I once had the pleasure of having some keyhole surgery there and while I was waiting to go to theatre a butler in full black tie came to see what I would like when I came round. Smoked salmon sandwiches, perhaps?
The builder boyfriend grabbed the menu and ordered himself a three-course dinner. They had trouble moving him on so I could have the bed back.
Obviously, if I could have afforded to go on paying for Bupa I’d be having much more of that. I’d have my bunions done, for a start. But I couldn’t afford the increased premiums, so I’ve had to make do with the NHS telling me breathtakingly rudely that absolutely everything that’s wrong with me, including my bunions, is nothing to do with them.
They told my mother the same thing about her haemorrhaging knee, which got so bad they were draining it every two weeks until she had to dig into her savings to buy herself a new one.
But thank goodness she could pay, and was able to have surgery somewhere efficient enough not to stitch a scalpel inside her leg. ‘I’m here to pick up Mrs Kite,’ I said, for my mother was being discharged that day.
But instead of the breezy ‘of course’ I was expecting, the lady in the green and white uniform, looking more like a Waitrose employee now I thought about it, barked: ‘What?’ and gave me a disapproving look.
‘I’m here for my mother,’ I said, a little louder, but the lady was nonplussed. ‘Visiting hours finish at 4 p.m.,’ she said, pointing to the clock, showing 3.35.
‘I’m not visiting. Well, I’m visiting but at the end of the visit I will be taking her home.’
‘I’m sorry. Are you visiting or are you picking up?’ said the woman. ‘Visiting,’ said my father, standing behind me. ‘And picking up,’ I added.
‘One person only,’ said the lady. He said: ‘But we came yesterday and we both went up to see her.’
‘Visiting, yes. But picking up is one person only. It’s infection control.’ And she said ‘infection’ venomously, looking me up and down.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘we’re visiting. Forget all about the picking up bit.’
‘But I thought you said your mother was coming home today.’
‘Well, yes, she is. But if we say we’re picking her up, you’re not letting us in.’
‘We’re definitely visiting,’ said my father, a look of desperation on his face.
The woman stared at us. And then she came out from behind the counter and revealed herself to be hugely tall. She walked towards us and we went backwards as she advanced. She reversed us all the way to the sliding entrance doors.
She said: ‘I’m not being awkward.’
You absolutely are being awkward, I wanted to say. And also: what on earth is going on here? Have you caught the NHS bug? Did you work in some hideously failing healthcare trust before you got a job here?
This is a private hospital for private people, I thought, which, if I had said it out loud, would have made me sound like Tubbs from The League of Gentlemen.
So I said: ‘Listen, how about we say we’re visiting. And then when we’ve had our visit, we’ll come back downstairs and sign out. And then I’ll sign back in and go back up in the lift and pick my mother up.’
‘No. If you’re picking up, the nurses will bring her down. Only one of you can wait.’
I then almost said my new thing: ‘Is this because I’m transgender?’ Because maybe I can be momentarily gender fluid, on any given day, as it happens. But instead I decided to hand my father my mother’s coat and leave before I lost faith in the private sector, which really would have broken my heart.
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