Rough Week

I've had a rough week this week.  It started on Monday with an insect bite, which by that night had become infected.  I woke up on Tuesday morning, and found that the infection was starting to spread up my arm, it gave me a good idea as to where the lymph system actually lies, which was kind of cool.  Though I started to worry what would happen if it reached my heart, as it was already getting pretty close to my shoulder.  So began a week long delve into the British medical system, something I was hoping not to have to experience quite so soon.

It's a strange system, I haven't yet decided if I like it, very bureaucratic and inflexible, but on the plus side, free. I can see the advantages if you have a persistent, on-going medical condition, or if you need weekly visits to the doctors surgery, if you have kids, are pregnant, are old, something like that.  Where it seems to break down is if you are actually sick and need to see someone that day. 

Firstly, I naively rang the closest doctors surgery to me and tried to book an appointment.  The first question the receptionist asked me was my date of birth, which at the time I thought was a little strange, but this question would become a recurring theme this week.  It seems that if the British ever need to reduce their citizenry to a number it's going to be your date of birth, they love it.  After the receptionist realised I wasn't a patient I'm then told they can't see me because I don't live in their particular catchment area, turns out I'm off by one street.

Once I find the one and only surgery in the whole of England which would possibly accept me, I then had to try and make an appointment there.  This consisted of pressing redial constantly for half an hour until I managed to finally get through to a machine which told me I was in a queue, why that machine couldn't have answered the first time I called is a mystery to me, perhaps they need another machine to have a queue for the queue?  When I finally got through to a person the first question was, of course, "what's your date of birth?", upon realising I wasn't a patient there they told me I couldn't make an appointment until I registered.  So into the surgery I go with my photo ID and proof of address.  Once I'm registered I'm then told by the receptionist that she is physically incapable of making an appointment for me that day.  They can only do appointments for 2 days from now and would I like her to make an appointment for later in the week.

What this system means is that if you aren't sick your visit to the doctor is completely pleasurable, you make an appointment for whenever is convenient, turn up, no queue, straight in and out.  Whereas if you are sick there are only 1.5 hours available to you each day, where you have to physically go to the surgery to be put in a queue for the doctor.  I am starting to sense where the British ability to queue comes from. 

And they are militant on those 1.5 available hours.  Whilst waiting the first time an old lady turned up with a chest infection wanting to see someone, problem was it was 10:05am and the queue stops growing at 10am.  So the receptionist sent her away.  Holy cow! 

The other really weird thing is that to see the doctor you have to get past the gate keepers first, the receptioinsts, which means explaining to them in graphic detail what is wrong with you in full hearing of everyone else waiting.  So forget any notion of privacy you may have.   

I think they almost have a great system though, I mean it is free and prescriptions are only 7 pounds each for any medication they may give you.  I just think it needs a bit of tweaking, perhaps more appointments available for sick people that day?  But maybe the fact that it is free is also part of the problem, because why wouldn't you see the doctor anytime you feel mildly sick, apart from the time-cost of course.  Add to that the 20 sick days the British get a year, and the fact you can take 7 days off in a row before needing to provide a medical certificate and it all points to a rather inefficient health care system.  All in all I probably spent close to 7 hours waiting for various doctors that week.  Perhaps there is some room in the system for a mixture of paid and free doctors.  I mean, I would be happy to pay not to have to wait 7 hours in a queue, especially when it's flu season.

What made the whole thing really bad though, and led to the 7 hours of waiting around, is that the second time I went back to the surgery, as the infection was still growing, the doctor gave me possibly the worst antibiotic he could, Erythromycin.  Seriously if anyone tries to prescribe that to you, straight-up refuse, don't go through what I went through.  The way it made me feel, I really thought I was dying.  Though by that stage I was on 4 grams of antibiotics a day, which probably wasn't helping my body function properly either.  Once the third doctor I saw realised she had no idea what was going on, and things were looking bad, it was off to the local accident and emergency ward, on a Friday night. 

The doctors there were great, the only problem I had was a bad reaction to the erythromycin, though they couldn't really understand why I was on so many antibiotics in the first place.  I think that's another thing I learned in this process, there seems to be a much greater reliance on the accident and emergency wards here than in Australia.  As in people seem to end up there much earlier in their treatment cycle than I would have thought they would in Australia.  So next time I go to the GP and whatever they give me doesn't work I think I'll just go straight to the A&E, the wait is about the same, but they'll actually fix you up.

You'll be thankful there's no photos this time, though I did take some, just in case anyone is interested.