The rule here in North Wales is that you need to call our local surgery over in England at 8 AM to get an appointment with a doctor. The Mrs has had a chesty cough for three weeks so – according to in the interweb – needs some antibiotics and thus a scrip. So she started calling at 8 AM. The line was engaged.
At 8.15 she finally managed to get through and spent the next ten minutes listening to recordings while she waited in a queue. Apparently the surgery has been suffering increasing abuse in recent weeks and if one is rude you will get struck off the list. That message has been constant for months. I wonder if the Village Surgeries Group in Farndon can supply any actual evidence of this claim?
At 8.25 AM she got through, described her symptoms and was told that all appointments for today are now booked and if she still has a cough on Monday she should call at 8 AM then. If you still have a cough after 21 days with periodic green phlegm, without intervention you are almost certainly still to have it after 24 days. Is there any possibility that the Mrs will win the telephone lottery and actually get through at 8 AM on Monday to get an appointment? We shall see.
As it happens , on Monday and Tuesday she has teaching at her Marxist Madrassa, what used to be termed a University, so really we are now talking about her plaiyng the phone lottery again on Wednesday. Maybe appointments are scarce as today is a half day for the poor Shipmans over in Farndon. The golf course waits for no man or woman does it?
The average GP is now on £100,700 per annum plus one of the most generous pension schemes going and the greedy bastards want even more. I relay what happened to the Mrs to my next foor neighbour, whose 90 year old wife is in real pain and unable to walk. Appparently she has been told she can see a specialist but not until January. Happy Christmas Mrs lifetime taxpayer, don’t you know that the ski-ing season is underway?
Say what you like about Harold Shipman but he never used to keep his patients waiting for an appointment and he would not have gone on strike for even more money, he was a Doctor who really felt a calling, a vocation. The system we now have really is the envy of the world. How do I become a flying picket to show solidarity with the poor Shipmans in their quest for a living wage?