The time has come

So, having got a big and important chunk of work out of the way and allowed the questions to die down, we are now in the consultation period. This leaves me with opportunities to find room in my diary for the long delayed trip to the hospital for a blood test. As you may recall, I have a personal policy that all things being equal, I do not allow madmen in white coats to stick needles in me more than once a year – less if I can possibly arrange it. So when I changed doctors earlier this year I cheerfully ignored the standard ‘go and give the hospital an armful’ request, it being a bare five months since I’d done it last.

Anyway, last time I visited the quack a fortnight ago, and got told off for disappearing for 9 months (I hadn’t, I had just got them to give me repeat prescriptions, is all) the doctor, a harassed-looking soul in his 50s who looked not unlike Professor Brainstawm on a bad hair day, decided that since I am a fatty with blood pressure problems I should have a blood test¹. “I suppose we’d better test for everything” I think I recall him saying.

Charming.

Any road up, busy work period over for the time being, I thought I’d take advantage of the lull to arrange a trip to the Finchley Memorial Hospital². My God, a lesser man would have died waiting for them to answer the phone. I even tried (with no success) to contact Barnet Hospital when I got fed up with waiting. It did however, give me time to look the pair of them up on the web and I see that while both hospitals are rated as “poor” in their use of resources, Finchley Memorial is rated as “good” in the quality of service. Barnet Hospital on the other hand, seems to be poor at everything. If someone is going to stick a needle in me, I think on the whole that I prefer that it not be a cave man in a mud hut, so Finchley Memorial it is.

Eventually I got through and they get to practice this barbarity on me next Thursday, so I have blocked the entire day off in my diary. Experience tells me that regardless of the appointment time, I shall have to hang around for a couple of hours before anything happens. The bit with the pointy needle and the prodding/extracting will take about 5 minutes no doubt. Still, I have been watching lots of House recently, and am torrenting the latest episodes from season 3 even as I type. I shall be able to wander around reception, point at people and say “Lupus” at them a lot.

I don’t know what lupus is, mind. A wolf bite, perhaps. I should look it up.

¹Standard response number 3. Numbers 1 and 2 being lose weight and take more exercise, respectively.

²I must admit that I am wary of hospitals with ‘memorial’ in their name. It suggests a failure rate one should not discuss in polite company. Memorials belong in churchyards or on village greens, not hospitals.

The time has come

So, having got a big and important chunk of work out of the way and allowed the questions to die down, we are now in the consultation period. This leaves me with opportunities to find room in my diary for the long delayed trip to the hospital for a blood test. As you may recall, I have a personal policy that all things being equal, I do not allow madmen in white coats to stick needles in me more than once a year – less if I can possibly arrange it. So when I changed doctors earlier this year I cheerfully ignored the standard ‘go and give the hospital an armful’ request, it being a bare five months since I’d done it last.

Anyway, last time I visited the quack a fortnight ago, and got told off for disappearing for 9 months (I hadn’t, I had just got them to give me repeat prescriptions, is all) the doctor, a harassed-looking soul in his 50s who looked not unlike Professor Brainstawm on a bad hair day, decided that since I am a fatty with blood pressure problems I should have a blood test¹. “I suppose we’d better test for everything” I think I recall him saying.

Charming.

Any road up, busy work period over for the time being, I thought I’d take advantage of the lull to arrange a trip to the Finchley Memorial Hospital². My God, a lesser man would have died waiting for them to answer the phone. I even tried (with no success) to contact Barnet Hospital when I got fed up with waiting. It did however, give me time to look the pair of them up on the web and I see that while both hospitals are rated as “poor” in their use of resources, Finchley Memorial is rated as “good” in the quality of service. Barnet Hospital on the other hand, seems to be poor at everything. If someone is going to stick a needle in me, I think on the whole that I prefer that it not be a cave man in a mud hut, so Finchley Memorial it is.

Eventually I got through and they get to practice this barbarity on me next Thursday, so I have blocked the entire day off in my diary. Experience tells me that regardless of the appointment time, I shall have to hang around for a couple of hours before anything happens. The bit with the pointy needle and the prodding/extracting will take about 5 minutes no doubt. Still, I have been watching lots of House recently, and am torrenting the latest episodes from season 3 even as I type. I shall be able to wander around reception, point at people and say “Lupus” at them a lot.

I don’t know what lupus is, mind. A wolf bite, perhaps. I should look it up.

¹Standard response number 3. Numbers 1 and 2 being lose weight and take more exercise, respectively.

²I must admit that I am wary of hospitals with ‘memorial’ in their name. It suggests a failure rate one should not discuss in polite company. Memorials belong in churchyards or on village greens, not hospitals.