Tag Archives: appointments

Another Hospital Post

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Wooden Dragon at Carsington

I went to the Hospital today. I took the car because it had cost me £12 in taxi fares last time. It cost me £5.50 to park (more of which later). It would cost me £4 to use the bus, though this is because of the Government £2 scheme. To buy a Nottingham City Transport return would cost me £5.30. Taxis take me to the door. My own car left me 400 yards from the door, which is a bit of a struggle for me (though less of a struggle, I am pleased to report, than it used to be). The bus – well it is a bit of a walk to the stop and I don’t know where they drop off for the Hospital, so it’s a non-starter really. All this is for a journey that I could have walked at one time – I can see the buildings as I sit here and type. Julia does sometimes still walk it when she has to go.

The system was generally good and the staff were excellent. Things seem cleaner and generally more efficient than they used to be and the staff are all pleasanter.

Wooden Wizard at Carsington

So, as I delight in moaning about the NHS, why am I writing this? I know that’s what you are all thinking.

Well, for one thing, they have TV on in the waiting areas. Dreadful, mind-numbing daytime “news” and discussion programmes full of idiots and misinformation. It’s like we are all being dumbed down by a central edict from Big Brother (or, in Rishi Sunak’s place Little Brother). Feed us enough daytime pap and we will soon become politically inactive, unable to spot sleaze and too stupid to think for ourselves.

Mute Swan Carsington Water

Then, despite them having an anaesthetist in the room, they are unable to see me while I’m there. I am having to go back next week. Another car parking fee, another tortured 400 yard walk. And if I’m lucky it will, like this week, be spiced up by a parking fee machine that doesn’t work properly and an idiot who parked so close to me (despite me taking special care with my parking) that it was hard to get into my car when I left.

The nurse told me I was lucky as I was local, and that some people had to drive 40 miles to their appointments. She hasn’t grasped the fact that it’s the final 400 yards that are the problem.

Then we have the people, dressed like NHS Staff, who insist on looking at their mobiles as they walk down the corridors, several times almost colliding with me. It’s tempting to let them do it. I may be old and decrepit, but I’m pretty sure most of them would come off worse if we collided. There aren’t many advantages to weight, but inertia is one of them.

Carving at Sheepwash Car Park – Carsington

I searched for pictures of cars, but most of them were of Carsington.

Lapwing at Carsington Water

 

 

Another Quick Note

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Valentine’s Day on the Farm

My hands feel a lot better. However, they still aren’t great and I am having to be careful not to knock the right hand or try to do too much with it.

I went for a blood test this morning, which went well. I then picked up something for Julia, which also went well. It’s nice to feel useful, and it’s not a feeling I often have any  more.

Back home, I rand Urology, using the number that came with one of the recent letters. I got through quite quickly. They don’t seem to have had the letter I sent (though I’m suspicious of this) and they tel;l me they only have a record of one letter being sent. As I was told yesterday, I have an appointment at the end of April. They acknowledge there were two letter and I was given the wrong information, but this doesn’t mean they will bring the date forward. I will just have to stay lucky and/or hope for a cancellation.

I am now going to make notes and send letters off again. One will be to the Urology address given on the letter (which is very like the one I used before) and the second will be via email to the people who deal with complaints. I don’t like making official complaints but they messed up and as a result my consultation is put off for three months. I don’t think it’s a fair way to treat patients. I also think their contact procedures need altering to make it easier to make contact.

Bread

To be fair, they picked up the phone quite quickly at the Urology Department and did seem to listen, even if they couldn’t do anything.

However, when you look up the consultant in charge of the team, their online presence is almost entirely about their private practice. I have a feeling the NHS, and patients who hve to be seen for free, don’t form a large part of his professional life.  That has always been one of the problems with the NHS.

Then I went back to the surgery to see a doctor. This appointment was to discuss blood test results. It was, as usual, inconclusive, and they will test again in three months.

Soup maker with rammed earth wall in the background – oh happy days!

We have a thing at the shop where customers, and my workmate, query why seemingly identical items are priced differently. My reply – pricing is an art and not a science and there is no reason for prices to be identical. We aren’t buying stuff from wholesalers and we aren’t selling items with a recommended retail price or closely competing rival (like supermarkets). Our price  will vary according to what we paid, what we think the market price is, and even what the weather is like.

I imagine that diagnosis is very much like that, and sometimes only a second test will show the pattern which unlocks the answer. Patience, weight loss and leafy green vegetables should do the trick. Of course, lots of leafy green vegetables will also play havoc with my Warfarin – nothing is ever simple.

Sheepdog in training

The pictures are from February 2016 and have nothing to do with Urology or the NHS.

 

Coppers, Cats and Chancers

29 Replies

Today we had eight customers and only one bothered to ring for an appointment. Even he rang before we were open and insisted on coming in at 10 am, before we were really ready for customers.

I’m going to stop answering the phone before we are open.

One of the others wasn’t even wearing a mask. When I asked him to put one on he told me he had one in the car. So I put one on the counter for him, which he ignored. However, as he was moving towards the door as he asked questions we replied and let him back out.

He had a silver Afghani wedding belt and a broken gold Rolex to sell. I looked the wedding belt up on Wikipedia, there’s a lot about Afghan jewellery but not much about the belts. It’s not really our sort of stuff.

photo of british shorthair cat sitting on grass field

Photo by Kirsten Bu00fchne on Pexels.com

We also try to avoid copy Rolex watches, whether broken or not. (If you’d seen him it wouldn’t have entered your mind that it was likely to be genuine either). There are a lot of narrow-faced chancers in our line, and the aura of mendacity lay heavy around him.

Chances are that if it’s a copy it isn’t gold either.

If, by any remote possibility, it is real it’s most likely stolen, and we don’t want that either.

I once bought a stolen item and it can get complicated. It was even more complicated because it was a police helmet and it had disappeared after being knocked of the wearers head in a scuffle in slab square.

It’s not unusual for used police helmets to come on the market, so it didn’t ring any alarm bells at the time. If you search “police helmets” on eBay there are 53 traditional British police helmets on the first two pages alone. That suggests there are about 300 helmets up for sale from the 600 items that come up on the search.

Such was my defence…

man in officer s uniform black standing during parade

Photo by Marianna on Pexels.com

I took the pictures from the Pexels site by searching for British Police. It turned up one useful photo of a British policeman and quite a few of cats – I think they are British Blues.