I fronted up early this morning for my appointment with the urologist at West Mid to discover that since my last appointment they had fired all the receptionists and you now had to queue for ages at the hospital entrance to book in on a computer. Since no mention of this had been made on the appointment I had neglected to take the form with me and soi the nurse was obliged to book me in exhorting me the while that it must not occur again. I was to hear this repeated ad nausium for the next hour and a half.
My appointment was for 10 45 and being use O the way the clinic works I turned up at ten fifteen to give me time to have the regular x ray, unfortunately the nurse on duty was not as familiar as myself with the procedure and so I sat down and waited. As I arrived the nurse was announcing that the clinic was running thirty minutes late, ten minutes later in was running forty-five minutes late. By the time I saw the consultant it was twelve noon and I had to be helped from my seat as my knee joint have completely locked. The chairs were so hard that they left me in need of and appointment with orthopaedics and I sat there waiting for such an age that I was practically geriatric by the time I was seen, perhaps they are touting for business
Of course there were no x rays , the consultant was not pleased, he asked my why I had not been x rayed and told him to take it up with the nurse at which he sighed and said no more.
He explained that I was at considerable risk from infection and ordered a urine sample, blood tests and an MRI scan. He told me that if I experience more pain I should goat once to A&E then loaded me up with a mass 0f paper work which I was to drop off at various parts of the hospital as of course they had fired the people who used to do this job.
I dropped off a file at imaging, another at the desk where they screwed up mu appointment because they did not notice that I was not to see the consultant again until the scan had been done. I explained that it was pointless giving me an appointment for two weeks time as the scan could not be done for at least six weeks. It took so long to knock home this piece of information that I wished for a hammer and chisel.
Next I went to get a blood test and when after fifteen minutes the queue had not moved an inch I had had enough and left already late for the meeting of the conservation group committee.
After all there would be not= rush to get the bloods done if \I was not seeing the consultant for two months. The pub was the next stop and I am glad to say that late as I was others were later and with worse excuses than my own.
My son attended the meeting and is now a fully fledged member of the committee, he will be running a blog for the group and has plans to revolutionise the committee, in the hope that the work load will be spread more evenly. At the moment two of us are doing all the work and speaking as one of the two I am knackered!
I downed a pint of strong ale and we made plans for our meeting with Our Member Of Parliament next week before heading home. By the time we got back it was three in the afternoon, and there you are, another day gone and bugger all done.
Stiff as a board and a little squiffy …...the beer was very strong I did not want to sit and was unable to stand either which caused a lot of trouble but by and by the effect of the ale wore off and all was well except for the vile aching in my right knee. I am grateful that today is over, tomorrow I shall be back in the kitchen baking cookies, tonight we had a take away thank goodness as I did not feel inclined to cook.
I have concluded that our Local NHS trust has fired a good many useful, indeed vital members of staff and keep its top heavy hierarchy upstairs in the plush admin section where the pile on the carpets is so deep that you can loose a shoe in it .
The whole hospital is in a state of disarray and the remaining staff seem to be either on a go slow or are coping badly with the changes. One thing is certain the current conditions are not at all beneficial for the patients, the waiting rooms are so full that there are not enough seats so the those left waiting in the corridor often miss there turn. The nurses are fraught because they are overworked and the the consultants are at their wits ends.
Many years ago Pa ran a large hospital and 28 clinics. HE HOSPITAL HAD A NURSING OFFICER AND A CTERING OFFICER AND BETWEEN THEM THEY RAN THE LOT . These days there are far too many people on the admin side of things, fro what I saw today there are more chiefs than there are braves . I was told that the way to tell the admin staff from others is that the admin staff are the ones wandering around with c cup of coffee and a clip board, those rushing about are the other ranks as it were.
The major problem with the new computerised system is that in the past two months the system has crashed several times this leaves consultants, nurses and patients without a clue.
In the old days a file was lost mm]now and then , these days hundreds of patients disappear at once, I talked to a man today who has been three times and has not once been recognised by the automatic book in computer, I must say he looked real enough to me, he has been waiting months to see a consultant and is understandably worried. It is time we stopped cutting corners with the nations health, what ever they save now it will cost much more in the future when people become ill through the negligence of all those cost cutting administrators..a pox take the lot of them.
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