Tag Archive: Hospitals

  1. 2012/13: A very brief retrospective.

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    Some girls like shoes and handbags.  Some girls like diamonds.  I like stationery.  I’m very excited at the moment because I’m about to purchase a new academic year diary.  This does beg the question, however, of what has happened to 2012/13.   I’m pretty sure it’s only been a week or two since I got to City.  On the other hand, Christmas must have been about fifty years ago.

    In a bit to preserve whatever sense of time I have left, here are my top five best and worst bits about the year:

    Worst:
    Money (lack of).  The time I had a cold but couldn’t afford to buy Lemsip – that was a bad day.
    Time (lack of).  Babies have been born, lives have been changed, the average day remains fixed at 24 hours.  To compensate, I’ve been filling myself with coffee and eyedrops at my desk for several months.
    Weather (excess of).  When my grandchildren complain about the cold, I will say “ah, now 2012/13 was a winter.  Not like these winters you get now.”  They will roll their eyes and groan, but we know the truth…
    Public sector cuts.  I’d like to work in a hospital when I qualify, but at this rate there’ll be none left.  The whole thing is really sad and also quite scary.
    The tube.  Self-explanatory.

    Best:
    Geekery.  Now that I’m about thirty, I don’t have to act embarrassed about how I find learning really exciting.  Which is nice.
    People.  I hadn’t expected to make friends while studying, but actually I’ve met some excellent people and I feel very fortunate to know them.  I don’t think I could do this without social support, especially the kind that happens at…
    Happy hour in Saddlers.  I would also like to give a shout out to the microwave there.  It made the winter more bearable.
    London.  It’s got everything.  I do like living in a holiday destination.  And actually you can do quite a lot for cheap or free, if you hunt around a bit.
    Clinical Placement.  This is basically Applied Geekery.  It’s the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life and I love it.

    Just think, all I have to do is do this all again, and then I’ll be qualified!

  2. Sometimes I get angry

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    I’m angry about the proposed closure of Lewisham A&E.  It’s my local one, see.  My neighbours are angry, too.  And the greengrocer.  And the bloke in the corner shop.  And my parents, because I live near where I grew up and it’s also their local one.  Both my parents are chronically ill, so they take an interest in hospitals, because they have to.

    What I’ve been asking myself is, do I oppose the closure on the right grounds?  Do I genuinely believe that the changes would be bad for the NHS in London, or do I just like the idea that if I had to go to A&E, it would be somewhere familiar?  After all, no-one complains when specialist care has to be further away, so why should generalist provision be different?

    What I’ve decided is that this particular comparison is not at all helpful.  If I had a head injury, of course I’d want to be surrounded by the best possible equipment and facilities, and if that meant being further from my visitors then so be it.  If I didn’t have a head injury (or a stroke or a heart attack), however, then that wouldn’t be relevant.  Why am I being offered something irrelevant, when what I asked for was an explanation of the changes proposed to my healthcare?

    Also – and this is important – I don’t really understand the difference between an A&E and an Urgent Care Centre (the proposed replacement).  I don’t understand it, even though I’m interested in it, and I’m educated and have the internet at home and English is my first language.  I’ll hazard a guess that the difference is not generally well understood around the Lewisham area.  People need to know what healthcare facilities they have and where they are supposed to go in an emergency.

    The Maternity unit also faces closure.  There would still be a birth centre, but some mothers would have to be transferred to another hospital during complicated births.  No-one seems to be able to explain how that is supposed to be safe, for the woman or for the baby.

    Situations like this are imminent around the country; there are 50 or 60 other trusts in financial hot water.  It seems that, for various reasons (but basically because we signed a load of bad PFIs and don’t collect taxes very well), we can’t afford to run the NHS properly at the moment.  I don’t envy Mr Hunt one little bit; it’s a hell of a situation to be in.  I don’t know what the best solution is.  I’m just certain it can’t be this one.  We need to keep thinking.

     

    (pic: Protesters at the front of the march carry the “Save Lewisham A&E Banner”. Lautel Okhio)