We all know the NHS is in a bit of a mess, but some simple steps that require little funding could make the working environment more pleasant for both staff and patients. Let’s start with A&E waiting rooms.
First, they should be a “no eating” area. I appreciate that patients, friends and family might need a drink, but food should be a definite no-no. Having to sit while people tuck into candy bars, sandwiches and kebabs simply isn’t on. The very sight of food for some patients waiting for treatment could make them feel much worse than they already do. When I was there with my friend – I’ll call her Ellen – we were surrounded by debris from leftovers, wrappers, half-empty soda cans, and most of it on the floor even though tables are provided. And those cans were hazards for the older folk and those with leg injuries. One old boy got positively snarled at when he accidentally kicked one over and sent its sticky contents everywhere.
So the food ban should be coupled with a strict “no litter” code. Anyone leaving food wrappers, drinks cans and the like should either be fined or told to leave. A zero tolerance policy on this please. Our waiting rooms should be clean, especially in a hospital for gawd’s sake.
We’re admonished and encouraged via all kinds of publicity – posters, pamphlets, advertisements that must cost a pretty farthing – that we all need to take a good look at our weight and eating habits, to cut out the chocolates, fizzy drinks, crisps and so on. But what have we got in every corner and corridor of our beloved NHS? Vending machines stuffed with an array of snacks and not one of them with less than five million calories and salt content to rival the Dead Sea.
I’m no skinny, size zero model – and I likes my grub – but come on: messages people, messages. I kid you not: four out of five folk in the waiting room were very overweight and even more scary was the fact that the nurses were the same. Would a fireman or policeman be allowed to be on duty as obese as some of those I saw? Could they even function with weight issues such as this? If some of them dropped a thermometer I doubt they could bend over to pick it up. I sat in a waiting room for some six hours waiting for Ellen to see a doctor – bad enough – but almost every time a nurse passed from one department to another they were chewing. The receptionist was chewing. Everybody was eating. Well, I don’t want my nurse chomping while she’s treating me. Do you?
Now here’s the one that will have the UKIP leader Nigel Farage knocking on my door and telling me “I told you so”. But it’s nowt to do with race. But you do the maths. More than half the people packed into the A&E waiting room were eastern Europeans. They become sick like the rest of us and they deserve to be seen. I want them to be seen and to get the best care available. But, assuming more Brits live here than those who aren’t, why is there such an imbalance at an NHS emergency treatment centre? It doesn’t make sense. If I go to a football match, for example, the number of Brits will greatly outnumber any other group. So why? Is it because they can’t see a GP? Is it because it’s free? I don’t know.
What I do know is that my taxes pay people to find this out for me and they are not doing it or won’t do it for fear of the racist card. Just recently, Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, did a documentary on Channel 4 in which he warned that this issue had got way out of hand. Phillips is black, a man who has championed racial equality for most of his adult life, and he believes things are in the silly zone. He said people who dared to voice concern about this were accused of being bigots and racists.
‘Just set a limit’
Now I’m not sitting here with my Union Jack shorts on and I don’t have a poster of Oswald Mosley on my wall, but get real and deal with this. If David Cameron is telling us that this is the price of our economic success and that’s why we attract so many from outside, then spend that extra tax they pay on the services we need and are entitled to. Rather than pick and choose who should come to this country – which I don’t agree with – just set a limit. Simple. No arguments about “who?” and “where from?”, just a number. I want anyone coming here to have the same level of services as me. The trouble is we are all getting bad services no matter where we were born.
I was at A&E because Ellen, a friend in her mid-70s who has terminal lung cancer, was in a serious condition that morning. She was in severe pain, her heart rate was over 175 (“normal” I learned is not more than 100/120). It was frightening for her. She was weak, exhausted and alone at her home in the marshes. I called a hospice to request a doctor’s visit asap as her breathing was becoming increasingly more difficult. That was at 11am. A locum arrived at 2pm (it was a Sunday). He confirmed heart problems – atrial fibrillation, I believe, is the term he used – and he asked if I could take Ellen to A&E rather than call an ambulance. It would be quicker. I agreed and he issued me with a letter that would “fast track” her for treatment. We arrived at William Harvey around 3.30 to 4pm. We were confined to the dirty, litter-strewn waiting room until 10.45pm, when she finally saw a doctor. Sitting there for some six hours with a dear friend in severe pain, struggling for breath, made me fearful for her and angry at what I witnessed. We sat on hard plastic seats that made my backside feel like it had been beaten with a log, so heaven only knows what Ellen – now weighing just 5st 7lb – felt like.
So, Cameron, Miliband and Clegg: is our health service safe in your hands? You might say it is. But the people who use it aren’t so sure. I left A&E at 11pm. That’s 12 hours after I called for a GP. Ellen was still not on a ward. Is that the health service you’re in charge of? If so, it’s not the sort I’d be proud of. I left there furious. I still am.