NHS anecdote

[WickedLester]

Moderator Message:
This contribution moved from here to keep that thread on-topic. - Chris

This is going off topic a bit, but there's been some mention of the NHS and I want to share an anecdote that still makes me chuckle. A few years ago I went for a blood test at my local polyclinic, It takes up a small part of what was once a very good hospital but is now a particularly ugly, expensive, poorly thought out and badly maintained housing estate. My nearest hospital is Queen's and its notorious maternity department.

Anyway, I digress. At the polyclinic you were expected to sit and wait for your name to be called for your blood test. A nurse came through the door to the phlebotomy room and called "Mohammed Ataq". My life already, I didn't know whether to run for my life or dive for cover. Fortunately this time at least he was there to give blood not shed it.

And on the same theme, I recently had the dubious pleasure of spending 3 weeks on the psychiatric wing of Pentonville prison and 10 days in Goodmayes Psychiatric hospital, an NHS facility. I can honestly say given the choice I'd take 3 weeks in Pentonville anytime.

I hope this won't breach site rules but I'd like to explain the difference as I found it. The staff in Pentonville were mostly white British, although the ethnic ones were good too. The staff were compassionate, some of them were highly intelligent and would talk to you. Every day, prison conditions allowing, you got to spend some time exercising in the fresh air, there was a range of activities you could do. The only downside was that at all other times you were locked in your cell with just a TV to watch.

As for Goodmayes, the staff were all black, apart from the Doctor's who were Asian. The black staff were surly, rude, obstructive, lazy and arrogant. The Doctors were contemptuous of you and did their utmost to keep you in there for as long as possible. There were no activities, there was an internet room but this was virtually never open. There was absolutely no attempt at offering a therapeutic environment whatsoever, the places only function was confinement. I met one young guy who to me seemed more than anything to be depressed and lonely, he told me he had been in there 6 months and no one had made any attempt to help him, he'd basically been forgotten. It seemed to me that all he might have really needed was therapy out side of confinement. There was a black kid in there and god knows what they were giving him, after medication he was a virtual zombie, tongue hanging out of his mouth making shapes with his hands out of imaginary objects. At other times he seemed quite lucid. There was a middle aged white guy in there who didn't come across as the slightest bit mentally ill. He told me he'd had an argument at work.

There were a couple of white staff there who popped in now and again but they were the sort of young, posh people who assumed it could never happen to them.

When you watch One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest you probably assume that was the way mental institutions used to be, I can guarantee you that is the way they still are in Britain. And don't assume it'll never happen to you. That's what I used to think.