I Seem To Have Spent The Day With Doctors

With it being Friday, it was psychotherapy day, which meant a night of interrupted sleep, an early exit from the house and a trip to the bus stop to catch a bus to the hospital. I'm a bit paranoid about timekeeping, and I was a little late setting off this morning, so when the wait for the bus seemed a little longer than normal I worried (absolutely needlessly) about being late for my appointment. The bus eventually arrived, and because the kids are still on summer holiday, and because the traffic seemed a little lighter than normal, I arrived at the hospital with time to spare. Not as early as normal, but still early.

Today's session started as usual with me being struck dumb and unable to express myself in any way, but my psychotherapist has become used to this and after a couple of minutes always makes a little comment, half couched as a question, and I generally start talking from that point, and rarely stop for long during the session. When I do take a break from talking, there is usually a simple question about how I was feeling at the time that I am talking about, and off I go again.

If you were asked to talk about yourself for 50-60 minutes, you would probably find it quite difficult. Then imagine what it is like having to do that to someone who is a total stranger on a weekly basis. It is difficult, it is very difficult, and you end up going to places in your mind and finding memories that you didn't know existed. It is an emotional roller-coaster that can be very traumatic at the time that you are talking about those memories, but which can ultimately become therapeutic because of the knowledge of yourself that you gain from the experience.

Today, for the first time, the session did not revolve around my relationships with my family and the causes of my beginning to start to suffer from depression. Today the session was emotional for a different reason because it revolved around the reasons for my having to seek early retirement on medical grounds. It was looking at how difficult other people find it to know what to say or do when confronted by someone with mental illness, how we suffer from discrimination in the workplace because of something over which we have no control, and how it makes you feel when you find yourself in these kinds of situations.

I have to admit that I was quite glad to get outside and start to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus for my journey home.

This afternoon, I had another encounter with a doctor; this time it was a visit to see my GP. Up until a year ago I was blessed with having perfect blood pressure. Then suddenly instead of a text-book perfect BP, it started to rise. The situation has been monitored and the possibility of medication has been discussed. The last time I went to see him, my GP was concerned about the level of anxiety that I was exhibiting, and as a result of this, and the fact that I was finding it difficult to climb out of the depression that I was in, he decided to change my medication. This was my first visit since the change and he commented immediately how much more relaxed I seemed. I knew that he was going to check my BP, he had told me he would the last time we met, so I was prepared for it. To make sure that I was relaxed, I set off for the surgery early, booked myself in, and sat in a quiet corner of the waiting room reading a book to take my mind of things and to get myself into a calm state. Once in the consulting room, and after the pleasantries had taken place, the cuff was put on my arm and I was told to sit back in the chair, close my eyes and to concentrate on my breathing. GP then proceeded to get me into as relaxed a state as he could before pressing the button on the machine. But even after this attempt to get me calm and relaxed my blood pressure was still much higher than it ought to be. At least we both did our best to make sure that it was a measurement taken without the influence of a stressful situation, but the result is yet another tablet to be taken each day.

We then talked about how my psychotherapy was going, the reasons for my feeling low at the moment, but how I wasn't feeling as bad as I expected allowing for the time of year and the anniversaries that will occur next week, and that I felt the change in medication had brought this about. We talked about how I wanted to be monitored in the future, although that won't start until my BP is under control, and I said that I would like to settle into a routine of monthly appointments, which is what I had become used to over the years, but that obviously if things got very bad, additional appointments would be made.

It was a long, totally unhurried consultation (but before anybody complains about me making my GP late for his following patients, it was a prebooked double appointment). I left feeling that I had been treated as a person, not just a number on a balance sheet, and that I had been properly allowed to take part in determining the way in which future management of my health will be conducted. Somehow I really don't think that would be possible if Gordon Brown and Lord Darzi are allowed to ruin the NHS in the way they plan to. I know I won't get treatment like that in a polyclinic.

I'm Worried About My Health, And That Of The NHS

Speaking as a patient, I am very worried about the NHS and its future. When I started to read blogs a few months ago, many of those that I started to read regularly were written by doctors and medical students. You may wonder why I was drawn to these blogs in particular, and I suppose the answer would be that many of those written by the doctors are very thought provoking and often allow you an insight into how the NHS works, while those of the medical students are often full of humour, something that we particularly associate with them as a group.

There is another reason why I read these blogs; I'm worried about my health. I don't expect to get a diagnosis from these blogs, I go to see my GP for that, but what I can get is opinion about what is happening in the NHS from one of the groups that has a vested interest in it. As a patient, I am a member of the other group that has a vested interest in the NHS, and it is for that reason that I believe it is every patient's duty to take note of what this government is trying to impose upon us.

The British tax-payer is entitled to get value for money from the things that their taxes are used to fund, they also have the right for politicians to be accountable to the public, after all they are employed by us to do a job, and at the moment they are not doing it very well. If I had performed at work in the way that they have, I would undoubtedly have been given a series of warnings, first verbal, and then in writing; I may even have found my employment terminated by now. Unfortunately, it is not quite so easy to get rid of a government. Gordon Brown has been served a number of warnings from the British public already. The local elections a few months ago sent the message loud and clear, and it has been re-echoed at the by-elections that have been held subsequently. But Mr Brown is determined to go from office having caused as much damage as possible, so that whoever follows has a very hard time putting things right. While he was Chancellor of the Exchequer he was constantly telling us what a good job he was doing with the economy. He was very careful to avoid mentioning that it was the Conservatives who put the economy into a strong position. Since he has become Prime Minister, it has become obvious that he certainly did not do a good job with our economy; we have learnt that that the poor position that we find ourselves in today is in part a result of the way in which Gordon Brown did things at the Treasury, and who he listened to.

Patient participation is not something that should just be talked about; it is something that we should all try to do to ensure that there is an NHS there for us when we are most likely to need it, when we are old and more likely to suffer ill health. This government has a very strong record in tinkering in things that should not be tinkered with, and the results are always bad.

Yes, they may have managed to reduce waiting lists by putting in more money. But huge sums of money have been, and are still being. ploughed into computer systems, that are so complex that they are proving impossible to implement or operate effectively and efficiently. There are also serious concerns about the security of information stored on such computer systems, and yet the government pushes on with their introduction.

Having negotiated a new contract with the GPs in this country, to the satisfaction of both the government and the doctors, the government has now decided that it got things wrong. But instead of biting the bullet and admitting their mistake, the decision seems to have been taken to get back at the GPs by doing everything possible to destroy the wonderful relationship that exists between GPs and their patients. And how are they doing this? By forcing the introduction of polyclinics and health centres, by putting the running of these out to tender, and in some areas, refusing local GPs the right to tender for these contracts. Some GP surgeries are going to be forced to close when these new centres are opened. People will have to travel further to see a doctor, and it almost certainly won't be the same doctor each time that they have to see someone. And why are we being forced down this route? Because the government have decided that they want GPs to open for longer hours to suit a few people who find current practice hours unsuitable. The problem is that this group of people probably need to see a doctor very rarely, so we have the ridiculous idea of rules being set to benefit a very small minority at the expense of the vast majority.

The government is definitely trying to privatise significant parts of the NHS, and this is something that we should not allow. I have said before that the NHS is not a business, and should not be run as such. It is a public service that is there to serve the whole population, no matter their ability to pay for treatment. Primary care should be firmly rooted in the community, and local GP surgeries do exactly that. It takes me a couple of minutes to walk to my local surgery, I am sure that should a polyclinic be introduced into my area of London, then I would have to travel significantly further.

I am asking patients to do their duty. If you want the NHS to continue as a service that serves you and not some far off shareholders, then you should participate in the NHS. Go to your local surgery and see if there are ways that you can join in with patient participation, and let us show the government that they cannot ride roughshod over us.