The NHS, again

Dear all,

I am sitting here wondering if I should unload on you (again) about the National Health Service.  Are you saturated with my NHS complaints yet?  I’m not.  I think I could write about the NHS forever.  There is something undeniably nostalgic about reliving the 1970’s every time you enter a doctor’s office in England. 

I have surrendered to the sinus infection that I’ve been brewing for quite awhile. Even the Chinese medicine man cannot fix me. When I called our surgery (medical practice) I spoke with the same doctor whom I confronted last year citing her lack of ethics and medical skills in an award winning performance, complete with tears, that was somewhere between a justice seeking Sally Fields and an insane Glenn Close. S was suffering from pain and blood in her urine for MONTHS and we were told repeatedly to go home and hope the problem would go away.  This lack of care coincided with R having his second bout of issues with, shall we say, his bits.  The doctor’s answer to R’s problems were,  ‘Well, everyone has pain and swelling sometimes.  This is just his time.’ At the same time, M had warts removed from his feet by yet another doctor who did not wash his hands or wear gloves.  How FREAKING nasty is that? All these problems fell on the heels of R having a seriously infected cut on his finger, which looked more like something you’d purchase at the butcher and throw on the grill than an actual appendage.  I questioned the doctor’s choice of antibiotics (Four times a day?  You are joking). The doctor spent five minutes thumbing through a manual for alternative antibiotics.  There weren’t any.  Only two types:  penicillin or tetracycline.  Having an opinion about your care is, well, frowned upon here.  Doctors do not like informed patients.

So, Friday, when the doctor asked me what antibiotics are most effective for me, I laughed and said that the American Z Pack, the once a day/five day antibiotic works beautifully.  Long pause.  ‘Mrs. Pierce,’ the doctor said in a tone of forced calm, like she was asking me to hand over the gun, ‘You know we do not have anything like that in this country.’ When CAN we expect it in this country, I enquired?  ‘Mrs. Pierce,’ same pause, same tone, ‘You know I cannot answer that question.’ So I will try to remember to take the old four times day penicillin that she assures me ‘works just fine for British bugs in British people’. 

Wasn’t I just saying I’d embrace all that was good enough for the British?  I may have lied. 

With love from England,

T-Ann