I have had a slightly trying time recently with the Doctor’s surgery and I just want to get things off my chest. Or should I say “out of my system” or even something stronger….
So I have had two courses of antibiotics this year – and it’s still only January. The last time I saw the Doctor, I said I was still feeling some symptoms of the previous Urinary Tract Infection returning. He didn’t mess around, he simply prescribed more penicillin, for a longer time. He took a sample of urine from me in the meantime, to send it off to the hospital for testing.
Then a few days ago, I had a bizarre call…..
Ring, ring.
”Hello, Doug speaking”
”Oh hello” a slightly hesitant voice “this is your Doctor’s surgery calling. Your test results are back and you need to have another blood test, unfortunately the hospital have said the test didn’t work and they need to do it again”.
”I didn’t have a blood test” I explained “it was a urine test to confirm if I had an infection”
”oh that must be it then, please can you drop a sample in for testing please?”
”Yes of course, I’ll call in for a sample bottle, like the one the Doctor gave me”
”No, please don’t, we can’t hand these out”
”Why not? The Doctor gave me one before”
”Sorry, cut backs. The NHS doesn’t give us enough money for that”
”So what I am meant to do then? Use a jam jar?”
”Well you could, just make sure it’s clean first of all. I think you can buy the sample bottles from a pharmacy”
As it happens, I was able to find a little sample bottle at home. This morning I took it into the surgery and explained it to the receptionist. Tippetty-tap on her computer and then asked “is it for ACR testing?”
“No, I don’t know what ACR testing is, I thought it was for a urine infection”
”Well have you labelled it? Date, time and your name?”
”Yes I have” I said as I handed the sample bottle, neatly contained inside an IKEA sandwich bag.
The receptionist took one look and I could imagine what was running through her mind (probably thoughts of disgust and of handling urine samples was not in her job description) and promptly put on a latex glove and took it from me. I said I’d call next week for the test results and that was that.
So this is all very frustrating. Firstly I get slightly unclear cryptic calls. Perhaps this is because the Doctors don’t have enough time to explain things in phone calls to patients. Perhaps it’s because reception staff feel reluctant to say too much or even say the wrong thing.
And then there’s the issue of sample bottles. Perhaps we will have to pay for needles, cannulas and other consumable things because the NHS has run out of money.
Hey wait a minute. Didn’t Boris Johnson say the NHS would get an extra £350M a week if we left Europe? Didn’t he promise shed loads of money if he won the last election?
Clearly I’m expecting too much in hoping for a sample bottle which probably costs only 25p? Am I?