Tales from the Waiting Room

 I’d like to introduce you to my fish. Apparently, he is going to be with me forever but I’ll just learn to ignore him. He looks a bit like this but less fluffy.

The last few days have been interesting, in the version of the word, that is the famous Chinese curse. I know that we are all living in interesting times but for some that is tipping into the truly horrific.

It started with flashing lights, then felt like I’d been wearing my swimming goggles had been too tight and then I had a dark line come across my vision. I rang the optician. No appointments until next week. I asked if they thought these symptoms were ok to leave.

 “No, go straight to A&E,” they said.

 I laughed and thought it was overkill and rang a couple of others. They all said the same. So I rang 111. A nice young girl, who made me feel ancient by saying, “Ahh bless you,” several times went through the triage questions and concluded, “It’s your eyesight. You need to be at a treatment centre within an hour. Tell reception about this call. They have an emergency ophthalmologist there.”

At this point the story is going to divert away from me and onto the truly horrific. I’ll tell you more about the fish later but he really is a small fish in comparison.

I don’t know if you’ve had anything to do with medicine since the beginning of the pandemic. If you have then I’m sure you have your own tales from the waiting room. You might have stood in a queue outside a doctors surgery in the rain to collect a prescription with elderly people who have holes in their shoes being shouted at because they are at the wrong place for their flu jab. You might have waited all day for a call back from a pharmacist. You might have argued with the receptionist that you can’t take a call from a doctor ‘whenever’ because you are a teacher and discussing your post menopausal bleeding in front of a class of 6 year olds wouldn’t be appropriate. You might have waved a loved one off in an ambulance to be told that you might hear from someone in about 6 hours. 

Whatever your stories, they won’t fill you with confidence that our health system is coping. It seems as though fear of this virus has allowed the mis-treatment of people under the guise of ‘government rules’. 

At A&E you are not allowed to have anyone with you. When I arrived it was already full. All the seats that weren’t taped up were taken and people were standing around the edge. Naively, I thought that 111 had already done the triage part and that I would be in the queue to see an optalmologist. However, I had plenty of time to watch the room as I waited nearly two hours to see a nurse who thought my blood pressure was high (despite a normal reading on the screen) and then another, close to, four hours before I saw a doctor.  People were ill and scared. 

There was a woman in pyjamas and dressing gown who was having a panic attack in the corner. An elderly man in a wheelchair couldn’t hear his name being called and missed it five times. There was a young woman, who could have been as young as sixteen,  in tears who asked several times if her mum could come in. Her mum was outside making smiley faces at her through the window and they constantly texted. Her request was met every time with a curt, “No!” and an implication that she was stupid. There were a few women with their maternity folders in their bags, clutching their stomachs, whose husband were made to wait in the car park. There was a woman who had to keep lifting her mask up to vomit into the cardboard bowl they had given her. A special needs girl rocked and screamed in her chair.  

After a while there was a bit of a kefuffle at reception. A man was told that he definitely couldn’t come in. Only the patient was allowed. 

He argued the point but was firmly told, “No!” 

Then there was a little confusion over whether he was the patient. He wasn’t. 

Then he said, “I get this a lot. It’s prejudice. 

It’s an unconscious bias. You don’t even know you are doing it.”

The receptionist was furious. 

“I’m really offended by that,” she shouted, “I resent the suggestion that I’m racialist (sic). It’s the government rules.”

“But the government rules says that as I am her carer I should come in and support her.”

It turned out that the woman had come from a care home and he was her key worker.  

The security guards backed off and he was allowed in. 

Then, the most horrific thing ever happened. An hysterical couple arrived at reception. They had rung 999 and been told that the situation was extremely urgent but there were no ambulances available and as they lived 2 minutes away to drive themselves. A limp, dead looking baby was draped over the mother’s arms. The hysterical couple explained that the baby had had his vaccinations that day and had been fitting. No. No fever.  The receptionist told the mother to go through to the children’s department and without batting an eyelid, told the father that he would have to wait in the car park. The security guard took a step forward. 

I know that people working in these situations have to develop a thick skin to cope but there has to be a better way than this.

Obviously, by the time I got to see a doctor the ophthalmologists had gone home and the lovely, partially deaf doctor, who asked me if I minded removing the mask so she could lip read and laughed when I told her that I knew some sign language but none of it was appropriate, was very apologetic that I would have to been seen the next day but to come straight back if I suddenly went blind. 

The Long Suffering Husband had been in the car park the whole time, surprised by the number of drug deals that take place in a hospital car park.

The next day, he is back in the car park and I’m in another waiting room. This time I realise that I have officially become an old lady because everyone else in the waiting room is over 80. I’ve had my eyes tested and drops squirted in that make my eyes sting, my pupils widen to Bush baby levels and the world appear blurred and fuzzy. 

“Mrs Corvette. Mrs Corvette............. MRS CORVETTE..”

A short woman with a walking frame shuffles past me. She has died red hair.

“Woo Hoo oooh,” I sing.

She looks at me and I am glad to realise that you can still be blind, 80, with a walking frame and still love Prince and have a sense of humour.

The ophthalmologist looks in my eyes.

“Yes, I can see your fish,” she says, “It does look like a fish!”

After an hour an a half of poking around in my eye she concluded that it hadn’t torn the retina, so I wouldn’t need an operation but it would never go away, although (the brain being as amazing as it is) I would learn to ignore it, after 6 - 24 months. 

I was telling a friend about it later.

“You’ll have to name it, if it’s going to be with you for a while.”

Dory was my first thought but it’s not as endearing as Dory and also looks completely wrong.

“It’s a humbug fish,” I said.

“Scrooge, then?” she suggested.

That would be very appropriate for Christmas 2020 but I think I’m going to go with Boris and hope that he disappears soon.