Private health

The last time I went to the doctors, I had to wait a month to see a particular GP, before work. I could only book one appointment. I couldn’t book a double appointment, and when I finally went to see my doctor, he literally had a meltdown when I asked him to make three referrals in one visit – to save time for me and for him wasted from having to come back coming back. This is the same doctor who took four months to get me the necessary test to confirm my Crohns diagnosis, about which I have been going to GPs with various seemingly unlinked symptoms for FIVE YEARS.

Without even wanting to go into the fact that I believe doctors caused it in the first place (read about that here) it’s now nigh on impossible to get treatment, despite, in that time, my mental health going down the pan, my hair falling out, my stress levels going through the roof, my skin becoming plagued by eczema, all having a knock on effects on the former, and my gut problems (symptoms which I hadn’t even been experiencing until recently) getting noticeably worse. No, I’m not dying, but sometimes I feel like it. Mostly through anger at not being able to get a bloody doctor’s appointment when I can actually get there.

Anyway, because Tom and I are both in work at the moment, and he has got super duper private health insurance, I finally got added to his policy, just in time for my diagnosis to be confirmed. This is why my doctor was getting hot under the collar (and not in a good way) about making three referrals. Rather than me having to make another appointment in yet another month’s time, I wanted to see about all my symptoms (of the same illness) at the same time. That meant a dermatologist, gastroentologist and back specialist to help me with the joint pain associated with the condition.

This was too much, so rather than just getting on and doing it, he spent the best part of ten minutes (the usual appointment time) ranting at me about how much pressure he was under, calling me high and mighty (for suggesting my symptoms might be linked – surely in the doctor patient relationship, they are the ones with the power,) and then finally submitting to doing a back exam (which I’d mentioned at the last appointment but about which nothing had been done) in which he conceded my muscles were exceptionally tight (and fucking painful).

The NHS is overstretched. That much is clear, but much like my back muscles, at some point, something has to give. Going to a private practitioner made me realise how tight things have got, particularly in Tower Hamlets where I live (where the local mayor has finally been done for council corruption).

Greeted at the door like some kind of celebrity, I was ushered in for treatment, where I waited all of ten minutes for a smiling, polite, friendly half hour appointment with a dermatologist, who enquired about my general health, prescribed four different lotions and potions, checked my moles, and dealt with one other thing that you guys don’t need to know about. She requested full broad spectrum food allergy tests and organised a follow up appointment in two weeks. Suffice it to say, my skin has cleared up in approximately one tenth of the time it took me to even book a bloody appointment on the NHS.

The problem the NHS has, being so overstretched, is the service especially in London at GP level is fucking awful. Don’t get me wrong; when I went in to Homerton Hospital with my daughter when she had concussion, the treatment was great, although the well-being aspect was lost amid the perfunctory efficiency of the operation (of which, luckily, none was needed).

By and large, my experience of the NHS is dire, shabby, vague and inefficient. Perhaps it’s because I have a condition that’s hard to diagnose, but it’s easy to feel like doctors are part of the problem. With so little knowledge of their patients, given it’s so hard to see the same blooming doctor more than once, it’s hard to get consistency of care. I feel they shove cheap prescriptions at problems, rather than dealing with underlying conditions, while, in the meantime the problems get bigger.

And this inefficiency is costing us money. It worried me that a recent article showed that private contractor provision of healthcare is always worse than NHS care, what with the current government seemingly hell-bent on privatising the health service, but this is surely because when services go out to tender, cost tends to be the deciding factor rather than quality.

The fact is, if you truly value your health (and as I get older and sicker, it seems like it should be the only thing worth valuing, because without it, all else is pointless,) perhaps we need to be prepared to stump up the costs of good service as a nation for everyone, rather than enabling the rich (and by correlation, probably less sick) to get five star service while everyone else simply has to suck it and see.

I’m sure, as a nation, we’d all be better off for it (and perhaps doctors wouldn’t be talking their stress out on their patients any more)