More ghosts

At the end of a long and difficult day I had a wonderful woodland wander alongside the beck. Thoughts of my day filled my head, and I felt a little rant coming along - so if you're just popping by for the pretty pic that really is cool - but I'd duck out here if I was you...

On the 7th of July I had a minor procedure at Lancaster Hospital, an injection into my subtalar joint. Whilst very minor it necessitated a consultant, a radiographer, an anaesthetist and several nurses. A key part of the treatment was that it would be repeated within 3 months, the consultant noted the date I'd be back from the Alps and said he'd have me back in the same week. I was super impressed.
On my return however it transpired that despite all those fantastic staff, despite a theatre being booked - the NHS's hugely over budget, under thought & not fit for purpose computer system had recorded me as a no show - and without checking why that might be had cancelled me out of the system. It's taken a lot of effort and persistence to get back in.
Today I had nearly an hour with the consultant going through options - and was really grateful and impressed when he called his secretary and asked that theatre start half an hour early this Thursday as he wanted to make sure my treatment stayed on track, I was also a little amused, and quite honestly relieved, to see him write this down in a proper paper pocket diary - I must confess I've not seen one in years.

23 years ago I had my only really bad accident - heels driven through ankles, ankles crushed against tibia & fibia. The NHS of yesteryear did a fabulous job of putting me back together again, but after 23 more years of playing too hard I'm starting to pay the arthritic price - and now more than ever I'm seeing that despite its many many detractors, despite its organisational chaos, and, well, just despite, our NHS is still an organisation that has people who really care, people who are close to breaking, but people who will still go the extra yard to help those in need.
The NHS is the greatest modern achievement of our nation, a thing we should be immensely proud of and thankful for. We, the people, should all be doing everything we can to tell this and any future government that we want it to have all the support it needs. I think that for most of us life would continue pretty much as normal with a bank or two less, I'm pretty sure we've enough nukes to blow our way to oblivion & I've never yet heard of a quango that actually helped anyone. That we now seem to devalue those who care for us, fix us and sometimes just make the inevitable bearable - that we don't think these are the people who should be praised, held up and rewarded - well either we've become a people I don't recognise anymore or, and I must say I think this is more likely, we've created a 'ruling' class so out of touch that these simple common values don't hold true for them. A politician is a transient thing - once a servant of the people, now too often a master - most actually 'serve' for less time than it takes a (disparagingly named) Junior Doctor to become a Consultant - most look like they wouldn't survive a single Saturday night shift, yet feel qualified to say that shift should be longer, and that somehow, by political magic, we'll all be safer in the hands of a simply exhausted medical staff.
Talking with the consultant today I felt this is a person I can trust - this is someone, who I accept might not be able to make what I want happen - but he's going to try. I struggle to see that in any of those who now lead us, and that just doesn't feel right.