Tuesday, March 22, 2005

*John Reid for PM

thewife has been in pain for much of the past week. She has been developing an abscess making it difficult to bend or walk. She was waiting to see if might disappear of its own volition, as these things sometimes do. She waited and waited until late Friday night she realised she was going to have to do something about, of course by then its a bit late, so Saturday morning she calls the out of hours clinic, yes we have one of those, but its the afternoon before they can see her. She's given antibiotics and painkillers, but has little faith in either. I have a flexi-day on Monday, partly so that I can recover from our abysmal showing in the pub quiz, and partly so that I can do stuff. thewife decides that she is going to see her own G.P. so shoots off (okay hobbles) and gets an immediate appointment with her favourite G.P. who decides that a bucket of antibiotics would not shift this baby. She makes a call and thewife is being admitted to hospital for surgery. THE SAME DAY! I run her there she's admitted and processed relatively quickly, is out of theatre by teatime and is surprisingly chipper come evening visiting time, complaining bitterly that they are keeping her in overnight. Well perhaps not bitterly on account of her having a swivelling flat screen tv, with phone and internet and email facility (not connected) for the princely sum of � 3.50 per day. I phoned her twice at the exhorbitant rate of 50p per minute (mobile rates may vary), so that's how they make their money. All that and remarkably good (In-house catered) hospital food, I know I've sampled it and it wipes the floor with that shit Sodexho serve throughout the U.K. I know I've seen and smelled it and that's as near as I want to get to it.

So there you go the NHS is sometimes really good.

*Just kidding of course. thewife was admitted to the last female bed so the hospital was therefore closed to all female admissions!
posted by timesnewroman at 10:37 AM  

0 comments