The NHS jungle

This was from two days ago but is nonetheless current afa I can see:

This is a personalised take on it but I’ll also summarise my mate’s comments, as they bring something to the table as well.  

While I did have a nominal GP, let’s call her Dr. J, she was a mixed bag (so to speak).  She was superfast at getting an ambulance to me way back on heart attack day, plus she was pretty efficient, plus very hands on in our last face to face “consultation” immediately pre-covid scam.

However, in speaking to the girl at the counter in reception, she dropped hints that I’d scored this GP as she’d been available … none of the others had been … they’d been snapped up by regulars at the practice and good luck to them, I say.

The one time I had a male doctor was mainly to answer “charges” of “abuse” by a female locum for “verballing” her. She disappeared from the practice soon after … seems she liked to do this sort of thing. So the female is a double-edged sword but the male is always a gruff, imperious speaker of RP who looks down on you, alpha male, which is fine, as I look down upon him.

Plus, to quote my mate who’d been given the wrong pills, I’m told … he asked the female doc why they’d been prescribed … she had no idea. An old male doc had prescribed them.

My own experience was that my doc at the time (female) had wanted to know if I accepted her expertise as doctor and I’d assured her I did … but was still capable of listing history, signs and symptoms for her to diagnose. As it was cardiac, she sent me to a major hospital, where an Indian doctor, charged by the NHS admin behind him to “reduce costs” by reducing my meds, had done so … arbitrarily, no explanation.

Result was my being unable to breathe. In my return appointment with the lady doc, she’d suddenly developed official “expertise” and had countermanded the cardio doc from the hospital.  “They’re not doing anything for you,” had been her parting shot though, in her version of a powerplay.  The EBM literature had told her they would not be much use. Actually, I was breathing right again but no matter.

A female nurse had taken me aside and advised the best place in town for med deliveries … if I wanted, she could change it now … it’s been good ever since. When I’d phoned over an annual blood test, it was a nurse I knew, not a receptionist per se … she said to go to such and such a clinic, not the major one … so I did.

Once there for my appointment, the clinic said they knew nothing about it, but the nurse would do me anyway. She’d read the screen about me and had said, “Ah, yes,” grinned and had done the test, chirpily.

The practice, a week later, had grumpily conceded I needed no further prescriptions nor medical procedures “for now”.

Now what am I to make of all this? Seems to me that doctors are to be avoided … too into the company admin procedures biz, most lucrative … the nurses were mixed. Some were nice gals, doing good things for us … some were in with the firm’s admins and docs and their advice was iffy at best.

Result?  I tend to trust the lesser female nurses most but they don’t necessarily trust themselves … and every further referral to the senior doc or nurse has thereafter been fraught in some way.  And that’s the situation right now. 

Having not turned up for vaxxes forever, an imperious senior doc (male, stern tones) texted recently to say he wanted me in there that day for vaxxing please.

I ignored it. Putting my life at risk?  Or staying alive? My mate added something interesting … the females tend to care, are more compliant, will do things by the book more … the males tend to have ego issues (don’t I know it) and are stubborn, therefore often more lethal.

In dentistry, I had a great male dentist who’d had to repair a twice botched female dentist’s treatment. The nurses though had been excellent … the best had gone off to have a child.  What to make of it all?  Everyone, by the way, wanted this male dentist … he then departed after refusing to shave the designer beard, plus other matters … is now doing well as a specialist somewhere.

Females do seem to care more but then they go and care for all the wrong people … shrilly, with purple hair.  Frankly, I don’t know what to make of it all.