Hospital Pharmacy (1)

The hospital pharmacy is interesting. For the past two years, one of the chairs in the waiting area has had a notice tied to it with a bit of string. The notice says 'Do not sit on this chair'. None of us do. I only think about this later, and resolve, on my next visit, to push the bounds of Englishness and disobey the notice. Now there's something to look forward to...

You arrive at the counter, avoiding the gaze of the waiting people, some of whom have been waiting for so long that they have begun to turn the same colour as the jaundiced walls owing to the lack of natural light. Most of the others are folk that you wouldn't want to sit next to if they were beside the only vacant seat on the last rocket off the terminally burning Earth. And there is always an angry middle class woman, usually in a royal blue suit who is on her mobile loudly complaining that she is STILL waiting after 4 minutes*.

Seasoned NHS patients like me are easy to spot, as we always have a book with us, sometimes a flask and sandwiches. Most of us are used to waiting, and don't mind, because we know that we are about to get hundreds of pounds worth of medication for either a fraction of the true price, or, if you're an official cripple like me, nothing at all.

Not blue suit woman, who is now building up a real head of steam about 'going private' 'never again' 'bloody farce' 'late for meeting' and finishing off with 'well, I don't mind telling you Colin, it's like the third bloody world. We're going private. We'll sell one of the children's ponies'.

By the shouting, agitiated pacing and arm waving, I make a laymans diagnosis that there probably isn't much wrong with her. She is what Dr Crippen calls 'the worried well' (15th October Post)

NHS Blog Doctor: The Crippen Diaries 2007 (Week 42)

But when her demanding nature, internal stress, arguments with Colin and two bottles of chardonnay a night habit cause her chest pains at 2am, I hope she rings her private hospital. They will tell her to ring the (NHS) emergency ambulance. The (NHS) paramedics will then convey her to an (NHS) hospital in an (NHS) ambulance where (NHS) staff will tend to her and give her the medication she needs, all without a flourish of the gold card in her wallet. Her private hospital will tell her to ring the NHS, because they don't have a defibrillator or a resident heart specialist or experience in dealing with emergencies. Nope, they chopper all serious cases to the (NHS) hospital up the road.

I know I do moan about the NHS, but I genuinely believe that this large, unwieldy public organisation does a damn good job, despite the constraints put in place by clueless, faceless 'managers'.


*As far as the '4 minutes', it's worth remembering that this is the only pharmamcy in a hospital that seves a city of just under 1 million people. It dispenses all the prescripitions required by over thirty in-patient wards and also serves over a thousand out-patients per day. There are eight staff - not all on shift at the same time.