A brief appreciation, on the Feast of the Epiphany, of an experience at the year's end. The year's end, when nothing is quite as normal, when people and institutions are not working at all, or on a shoestring before the next holiday, when the nights are long and dark and when often - as was the case last Thursday - the sun never really puts in an appearance and life seems suspended. It was on the evening of such a day, two days before Hogmanay, that I had occasion to make use of the Ambulance service and the A&E department in Dunoon's hospital. And before I get carried away, let me say one thing: they were wonderful.
A persistent cold virus has had every second person I know struggling over December, and it had caught me up over Christmas, so the day has been quiet, boring even, in a pleasant sort of way. This all changes when I am assailed by a searing pain that feels as if I'd been stabbed under the ribs (I haven't.) As it is actually the worst pain I've felt - even more so than childbirth - Mr B ends up dialling 999. It quickly becomes apparent, even to me, that people think I might be having a heart attack. (I'm not. I'm pretty sure of this, for some reason. Can one tell?) I think that when they hear my date of birth these days alarm bells ring. Besides, I am dripping in sweat, freezing to the touch, unable to stop trembling - you know the kind of thing. Quite dramatic.
I find myself being assisted downstairs by a large man in green. He is making soothing remarks. There is another big man in the hall. Soon our sitting-room is full of green - uniforms, bags - tubes, paper things, a white oxygen cylinder, needles. They take an ECG, despite the contacts' sliding off periodically. Morphine. Anti-emetic. "Don't go to sleep on me!" Fascinated - even in this state - to realise that though the pain is still there I don't care so much. And I don't really care about anything but the pain in the first place.
Seventeen steps between our front door and the gate. Swaying down on a small chair to which I am strapped, worrying that the man behind me will have a hernia by the time he reaches the gate, realising that the gate is not held back by the big chuckie I've used since I was pulling a pram up and down, noting dispassionately that the lead paramedic is having to hold it open with one foot in order to get me through it. The blue light on the ambulance is flashing, as it has presumably flashed for the past 45 minutes. Oh, Lord - the neighbours. It is strangely difficult to transfer from seat to bed, but I get there somehow. The ambulance has rock-hard suspension and I hear myself groaning. And all the time the lead paramedic is telling me I'll be all right and not to worry, and somehow I am comforted and simply give up.
It's the same in A&E. One nurse, one doctor. The paramedics are there doing the handover and then they're gone. More stabs. A cannula. Somewhere along the line the pain recedes and I fall asleep. The whatever-it-is you lie on in A&E seems sublimely comfortable. I don't know what I dream and what is real.
I'm allowed to go home at 4am. Mr B is roused by a phone call, having been sent home before midnight, and I march out across the car park unaided. I am incredibly grateful for these people who rescued me, looked after me, restored me to myself. My own bed beckons. There is only one thing that perturbs me in this euphoric state ...
I have been wearing my EastEnders dressing gown. Vulgar and totally risible. Warm, comforting - yes, but not what one's mother would have tolerated. Perhaps I should buy a more decent one ... just in case?
Showing posts with label NHS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NHS. Show all posts
Friday, January 06, 2017
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
How the NHS lost my man ...
Here's a wee NHS story with a personal twist. I've been married to a non-person for the past 12 years - or is it 11? We did wonder, a month or so ago, when the man on the other end of the NHS24 line turned savage (or at least peremptory) and refused, "in the interests of security", to speak further with Mr B because, according to Mr NHS24, there was no-one with his details registered at our address. A tad Orwellian, huh? And strange, as we've lived here for over 40 years and Mr B has seen quite a few decades under the NHS. But we had other things on our mind, no-one was dying - he was only trying to make a physiotherapy appointment - and we let it go.
Until yesterday. Yesterday, in the hospital On The Other Side - in Gourock, not in Heaven - the discovery was made that Mr B had the Wrong Number. This is the CHI Number, defined thus:
Definition
The Community Health Index (CHI) is a population register, which is used in Scotland for health care purposes. The CHI number uniquely identifies a person on the index.
CHI is mandatory on all clinical communications.
- according to the NHS site. It is a 10 digit number, the first part of which is one's date of birth. And some sharp-eyed person in Inverclyde noticed that Mr B's number didn't tally with the DoB he'd just given. There was, apparently, a great flurry of concern. And this is why ...
Had Mr B been wheeled into A&E on a trolley after something horrid like a car crash, someone would presumably have retrieved his driving licence, found his name and DoB, and called up his medical records electronically. Only they might well not have been his records - or they would perhaps be unable to find them, because they'd be under another birth date. Luckily, he's not been in such a trauma, so the problem hasn't arisen, and yesterday he was perfectly compos mentis and able to speak up for himself. But don't forget the NHS24 man - he refused to speak to someone whose records didn't match what the person on the phone was telling him.
A bit of digging at the local GP surgery - where he's been a patient since the 70s - revealed that the error happened some 11 years ago, when handwritten records were digitised. Someone changed a 0 to a 1, and the real Mr B disappeared, replaced by an imposter 10 days younger. And we've only just found out.
I don't know what would have been the final outcome had this not been discovered. I hate to think. As it is, it's almost amusing - sufficiently so for me to blog with a relatively light heart. It might have been very different. I've just checked my CHI number, and it seems to be correct.
Until yesterday. Yesterday, in the hospital On The Other Side - in Gourock, not in Heaven - the discovery was made that Mr B had the Wrong Number. This is the CHI Number, defined thus:
Definition
The Community Health Index (CHI) is a population register, which is used in Scotland for health care purposes. The CHI number uniquely identifies a person on the index.
CHI is mandatory on all clinical communications.
- according to the NHS site. It is a 10 digit number, the first part of which is one's date of birth. And some sharp-eyed person in Inverclyde noticed that Mr B's number didn't tally with the DoB he'd just given. There was, apparently, a great flurry of concern. And this is why ...
Had Mr B been wheeled into A&E on a trolley after something horrid like a car crash, someone would presumably have retrieved his driving licence, found his name and DoB, and called up his medical records electronically. Only they might well not have been his records - or they would perhaps be unable to find them, because they'd be under another birth date. Luckily, he's not been in such a trauma, so the problem hasn't arisen, and yesterday he was perfectly compos mentis and able to speak up for himself. But don't forget the NHS24 man - he refused to speak to someone whose records didn't match what the person on the phone was telling him.
A bit of digging at the local GP surgery - where he's been a patient since the 70s - revealed that the error happened some 11 years ago, when handwritten records were digitised. Someone changed a 0 to a 1, and the real Mr B disappeared, replaced by an imposter 10 days younger. And we've only just found out.
I don't know what would have been the final outcome had this not been discovered. I hate to think. As it is, it's almost amusing - sufficiently so for me to blog with a relatively light heart. It might have been very different. I've just checked my CHI number, and it seems to be correct.
Is yours?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Glasgow Royal cheers
It's snowing, inconveniently, but I'm not going to mention it again. Instead, I'm going to indulge in a wee paean of praise for the Plastic Surgery department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary - and no, I wasn't having cosmetic surgery. Just in case you ask. It was a very tiny bit of cutting and stitching that was required, though I suppose the resulting biopsy may lead to a further visit.
The great thing is that I'm not anything like as bothered by that thought as I was. The people I met there - especially Jim the nurse - couldn't have been better at mixing professionalism with the appearance of personal interest; the building was newish and therefore cheering; the atmosphere in theatre was calm and unthreatening. My face, having had any vestiges of moisturiser swabbed off it, was swathed in drapes, so I couldn't see anyone, but I was able to listen to the instructions as someone practised tiny stitches on my temple (I never thought of the bit in front of my ear as the temple, but there you are) and join in the discussion about how difficult it was to explain the difference between a granny knot and a reef knot. (To be honest, I think the instructing surgeon was better at surgery than language - it was my idea to call it a granny knot when one stitch had to be removed and redone)
Even the horrid sensation of the local anaesthetic was alleviated by the cheerful warning that it would be like a dental injection but wouldn't last, and by the discussion of the relative merits of the words "prick" and "scratch" in describing the sensation of an injection - apparently they worry about people's reactions to the former - and by the realisation that it worked so well. I was grateful for the fact that I was seen almost as soon as I got there (early: we were anxious about the black ice on the pavements and our ignorance of the hospital layout) and that it was still light when we finally escaped ...
...to some lovely tea and a large chunk of carrot-cake in nearby Brewhaha. Very therapeutic - I recommend it. But let's hear it for the NHS - at least in Glasgow Royal.
The great thing is that I'm not anything like as bothered by that thought as I was. The people I met there - especially Jim the nurse - couldn't have been better at mixing professionalism with the appearance of personal interest; the building was newish and therefore cheering; the atmosphere in theatre was calm and unthreatening. My face, having had any vestiges of moisturiser swabbed off it, was swathed in drapes, so I couldn't see anyone, but I was able to listen to the instructions as someone practised tiny stitches on my temple (I never thought of the bit in front of my ear as the temple, but there you are) and join in the discussion about how difficult it was to explain the difference between a granny knot and a reef knot. (To be honest, I think the instructing surgeon was better at surgery than language - it was my idea to call it a granny knot when one stitch had to be removed and redone)
Even the horrid sensation of the local anaesthetic was alleviated by the cheerful warning that it would be like a dental injection but wouldn't last, and by the discussion of the relative merits of the words "prick" and "scratch" in describing the sensation of an injection - apparently they worry about people's reactions to the former - and by the realisation that it worked so well. I was grateful for the fact that I was seen almost as soon as I got there (early: we were anxious about the black ice on the pavements and our ignorance of the hospital layout) and that it was still light when we finally escaped ...
...to some lovely tea and a large chunk of carrot-cake in nearby Brewhaha. Very therapeutic - I recommend it. But let's hear it for the NHS - at least in Glasgow Royal.
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