As you know I have been waiting for an operation on my prostate. There seems to be quite a few hospital hospital shenanigans emerging and I’m not too sure what to make of them. I am suspecting this is another example of the background administration buckling under the strain of public sector pressure.
When I was told about the operation I needed, I was still in hospital. They said it would be a few weeks and the consultant was referring me urgently. I was feeling pretty optimistic, positive and the light at the end of this saga was looking increasingly brighter!
3 months with this flippin’ tube inside me!
I was advised to call the waiting list office frequently and this is what I have done. Each time they confirmed I am on the waiting list and this is normally a wait of 3 months. Three months! That’s 3 months with this flipping catheter tube going up into my bladder and constantly there. This tube carries urine direct from my bladder into a 500ml bag strapped to my leg which is pretty uncomfortable. At night there’s a different arrangement with a long tube going into a much larger bag, clipped to the side of the bed and that’s not so bad at all.
I was telling a colleague of mine about this and she said I ought to write to the CEO of the hospital and make a formal complaint. I might but I also want to have people on my side – that’s the kind of person I am – I prefer collaborative relationships, being on good terms, working together wherever possible and so on. Generally more gets achieved this way but can I apply that to my hospital situation?
Anyway, on Friday 8th June I had a surprise phone call from the hospital, asking me to attend an appointment with a consultant on the following Monday, 11th June. Short notice but at last something was happening!
The pointless appointment?
I duly booked the time off work, turned up for the appointment in the hospital’s Urology department called the One Stop Clinic. I checked in, waited a little and was called in. The consultant looked through my notes and asked why I was there. I briefly told him the story and explained I was waiting for the operation on my prostate. He agreed I needed this done and would ensure I was on the waiting list. Again I explained I was on the waiting list and starting to find it all so frustrating (longer wait, had an infection with antibiotics, two changes of catheter etc) he became a little more sympathetic. This was followed by saying I am retiring soon and would prefer not to start retired life with a spell in hospital hanging over me.
He agreed and dictated a letter asking for me to be “expedited”, in other words the operation should be done as quickly as possible. The whole appointment seemed pretty pointless to me. I hadn’t been examined and nothing really had changed. At best this consultant was merely endorsing what the previous consultant had said.
In order to be polite and deflect the direction of the conversation, he suggested I was young to be retired and asked what I was going to do. Well, I thought, there’s quite a long list and so I’d better just pick one thing. So without any more thought I said I’m planning to help out in our church coffee shop. He was intrigued, why? Why does a church have a coffee shop, what’s the point? He then jokingly suggested that’s no way to evangelise and I explained often people become interested in faith through simply popping in for a coffee one day.
The consultant asked what we were currently studying and I replied with Revelations, a pretty demanding book of the Bible, full of strange and scary visions. He knew all about it and explained how he too was reading the Bible in order to learn Hebrew.
The conversation drew naturally to a close, we shook hands and I was off. It was then the pointlessness of the meeting dawned on me. He must have thought I was a fresh referral from my GP and indeed when I got home there was a letter telling me just that. And then yesterday I received another appointment letter for a general prostate assessment on 25 July. I suspect they have me labelled as a patient who has been referred and they have to figure out what’s wrong.
I feel another phone call coming on…..
In a nutshell I am feeling:
- a little lost in the system
- frustrated with this damn tube going right inside me
- knowing this tube will be there for at least two more months
- uncertainty about when the next stage is and whether there has been some administrative error
- frustrated because the summer is going so fast and I’m not enjoying it as much as I should
- fobbed off
I think I’m feeling better for having had a rant.