the state of the NHS after fourteen years of Tories is a terrifying and miserable capitalist hellscape
case in point, me, the last week or so:
have uti, picked up from a partner's infection. Very simple easy thing to treat. This one is a nasty little bugger, I feel like shit.
call gp. Ask for appointment.
At length told a pharmacy can prescribe 3 days of antibiotics without you seeing gp. Excellent!
Receive antibiotics. At this point we are ~3-4 days in. That's also how long it's been since I had a proper night's sleep because I HAVE TO GET UP TO PEE FOUR TIMES.
Antibiotics produce great improvement, but (surprise) perhaps not 100% by the time I finish the course. Nevrthless, am told by pharmacy I can't get any more from them. I must go to gp.
Call gp. Come down at 8am physically to surgery next day.
Arrive at 7.47. 12th in the queue. Total queue reaches >20 by 8am. For a cool parallel, they run out of appointments at person 8. The poor receptionist looks like if she has to tell one more person there's nothing she can do, she'll cry.
Receptionist tells me I can try again tmm (arrive at 7.30? I wonder thoughtfully) or try submitting a request through The App. Someone will call me today. I thank her and submit it in the car before I leave.
3.55 (GPs generally close at 4pm). No call. I squish down the fear that I am Karen-ing and call in. "I'm so sorry," I say, "do you know if I WILL be called today?"
She says I might get one up to 6pm, but that will only be a receptionist who will be booking an appointment in the next couple of weeks. "This can't wait two weeks," I say. "Your own guidance says so."
"There's nothing I can do," she says, and: "You shouldn't be using the online system for things that are urgent, anyway." "I tried to get an emergency appointment and there was nothing: I was TOLD to use this," I say, helplessly. "...Well anyway," she says, "the receptionist might call you by six."
AHA! I think. I am immensely lucky and have some small health insurance through work - including virtual gp. Maybe they can help! I book an appointment through that platform, relieved.
The appointment is over the phone within an hour - phenomenal. She tells me that she is not allowed to prescribe me anything: the uti not fully clearing up in 3 days of antibiotics means I need specialist urine testing as there is likely resistance. It needs to happen immediately, today, tonight, because I am at risk of a kidney infection. She can only refer me back to the NHS.
I say "but they don't have anything, and I can't argue - the poor receptionist can't do anything about not having appointments."
"You have to fight," she says. "You have to be seen. Go to urgent care if you have to."
It is now 6.05pm. The receptionist has not called.
Guess I'm spending the evening in a&e.
This is the struggle to get basic healthcare in the UK right now, and there is very often NO OPTION other than A&E. I HAVE some level of "private healthcare", and they could not do anything. Imagine what it's like for most people who don't even have the tiny level of access for a virtual GP to tell them that they ARE right, and they DO need to make a fuss.
I have been crying on and off all day. This is just not having healthcare. I wish I had any confidence at all that we'll change how we vote as a country.
