I’ve just tried to book an appointment with my local GP. It’s not urgent, and my
only restriction is that I could do with it being towards the end of the day, so
that it doesn’t stuff work up too much.The Receptionist said, “I’m sorry, all of
today’s appointments have been taken”.So I said, “That’s OK, can I make an
appointment for tomorrow, or Monday ?”And she said “No, I’m sorry, you’ll have
to ring again tomorrow. We open at 8:30” .So I said “So I can’t make an
appointment more than one day in advance ?”And she said “That’s right”.
I have had a similar incident where I was worried about my daughter's health, but didn't think it was serious enough to take her to the hospital.
I rushed her one Friday morning to the doctors for when they opened at 8.30 to see if someone would have a quick look at her legs and arms as large red marks were appearing all over them. Our GP's surgery doesn't start until 9.00, so someone could have taken 5 minutes from their morning coffee to see an 8 year old child.
Not only did the receptionist refuse she was also very rude. My daughter seemed fine in herself so she went into school as normal.
By Saturday afternoon the red marks started to appear over the rest of her body and she complained about not being able to walk properly and being in a lot of pain.
I know I should have rushed her up to the hospital on the Friday morning, but I honestly thought my GP would help as they have always done before.
I saw the Triage Nurse at the hospital who told me she thought my daughter might have meningitis, this scared the shit out of me and I was worried sick. I called my parents and my daughter's father.
We were left in the waiting room for an hour before they asked to take blood samples for testing. After they took blood they told us to go and get lunch and to come back after an hour.
We came back from lunch to be left waiting in the waiting room for another 2 hours before being called in to see a doctor.
He advised with me that my daughter did not have meningitis, but something called vasculitis. It is a condition that she will now have for the rest of her life. She had a cold, then tonsilitis and then another cold straight after. Her immune system was really low so this is how she got the illness.
If she ever gets a cold or tonsilitis again the vasculitis will come back.
If it hadn't been for the wankers at the surgery refusing to see a child when she was brought in to them, then I would have been able to sort her whole problem out sooner.
Again, I should have taken her to the hospital from the start, but you are never sure that doing that is the right thing to do. You always have this worry that Social Services will be on your back.
Social Services only seem to care about the cases that aren't really cases at all. The real cases like Baby P get pushed to one side.
Sorry coming off the real reason why I am typing this in the first place.
The NHS need to have a system that works and they also need staff that realise they are the same as the patients, not people who are above everyone else.
I thought GP's and their nurses were there to help people, not to make life even harder than the government have already made it.
This is all down to the bloody government target nonsense about the percentage of patients who can get a GP appointment within so many hours / days of asking for one. My surgery will be able to say that 100% of appointments are booked on the same day that the patients requested them, and some bureaucrat somewhere will tick some bloody box and think it’s all fantastic.
But it’s not fantastic. It is unbelievably, unspeakably, stunningly bad service.
This again is spot on. I am really behind Womble on Tour on this whole thing. As soon as Labour are out and we have someone/ anyone who cares gets in the hot seat then I think we might finally get somewhere.
What I would also like to see happen is when you do finally get an appointment and you manage to make it to see your GP because of a sore finger or a tendon strain in your hand you don't get asked if you smoke.
Because according to my GP, my smoking is the cause of a tendon being pulled/ strained in my right hand.
Funny isn't it how smoking is the cause of all ills. WHAT A LOAD OF BOLLOCKS!!!!!!!!
Sorry coming off the main focus again.
Womble on Tour well done and thank you for saying what you have said and letting me know I am not on my own.
2 comments:
Hi,
Your story is far, far worse than mine. To refuse to see a child who has had rashes come up like, when the parent is struggling with the "to Casualty or not to Casualty ?" dilemna is quite simply unforgiveable.
The people responsible should ask themselves why they went into healthcare in the first place; it SHOULD have been because they wanted to care for people and help them get better. If that's why they're still in the profession I just cannot see why they would turn a child away. If it isn't then they should get the hell out.
Oh, and as for smoking, didn't you know that as well as dodgy tendons it's also the cause of the credit crunch and global warming ?
Now that I can believe.
Us smokers are a the worst people in the entire world, doesn't matter if you pull 50 people out of a burning building or wear your pants on the outside of your tights.
If you smoke then you are worse than the common rat.
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