Blue

My appointment ‘in six weeks’ time’ turned out to be today, nine weeks later. Perhaps I should have made a fuss earlier. If I’d realised that they’d booked me into the wrong clinic I would have. But when the reception desk suggested it might be better if I went home I finally did get assertive. I was asked to wait, and after not as long as I expected an out-of-breath nurse told me she was shocked at how long I’d waited since my previous appointment, just as the nurse at my previous appointment was shocked at how long I’d waited from referral. It turned out she’d been running up and downstairs trying to persuade the consultant to see me even though I ‘didn’t have an appointment’. She succeeded. And once I’d seen him, she queue-jumped me for the next process. So now I am booked in for the eye operation promised at my last appointment for ‘December–January’ which has now become in 12–18 weeks’ time, i.e. between February and late March.

She said she’d do her best to book it earlier.

This is the same operation as I had 13 years ago. Then it was six weeks from diagnosis to operation. This time it’s over two years since I first went to my GP and over a year since I by-passed him by going to the optician.

Our underfunded NHS is a scarily creaky machine with some lovely people in it. Bit by bit we’re losing it, and we’re going to miss it when it’s gone.