Argh!!

I can’t help feeling that the Lothians NHS system is out to get me. My whole week has been like a pantomime. This is a long story and if anyone’s bored, of a delicate disposition or suicide-prone, they shouldn’t read it.

Last Friday, I woke up to find that my ear was blocked, and after trying to unblock it I came to the fairly logical conclusion that something must be stuck in there. So I thought I’d play it safe went to the university doctors that afternoon instead of having a go myself, and she peered inside to see something white (probably a cotton bud). Still no idea how it got there, it’s pretty strange and one of the stupidest “injuries” I’ve ever had before - although I did once break my toe ‘fixing’ an arcade game machine. So the doctor tried to take it out with a pair of tweezers and failed, pushing it back in. She then referred me to the ENT ward at St Johns, which is about a 2 hour bus journey away, because she didn’t feel so confident doing it herself, not being a specialist.

I got on the bus, and in true pantomime style the driver was going about a million miles an hour, and the old lady sitting next to me kept clinging on to me for dear life as we went round the corners. I arrived at St Johns, thinking I’d be there for an hour at most and then I’d be on my way back home to enjoy my weekend revising. No, there I was, alone in the waiting room for over an hour, when I got called in and a very junior doctor straight out of med school tried to get it out with a sucker tube thingy. That didn’t work either and it hurt like hell. I’ve been there for almost 2 hours now and it’s not budging, so the doctor says “I think it would be a good idea if you stayed overnight so a more senior doctor can look at you in the morning.”

I’ll be damned if I’m spending a night in hospital on a throat ward with spluttering old men keeping me awake all night when I’ve got work to do, so I said “I’d rather go home, I’ll come back here first thing in the morning”. In hindsight I should have just stayed on the bloody ward, but I failed to see how a doctor with an extra letter after his name would be more qualified to get something out of my ear, surely a mechanic would do a better job. 2 hours on the bus later I got back home and got on the internet, to see if there was anyone in Edinburgh who might be able to help me, not 2 hours away, and to my horror I discovered that Lauriston Place, not 5 minutes from my flat, has an ENT clinic. So I thought I’d ring them in the morning and go there instead of St Johns.

So I rang the next morning and the person on the other end told me that the appointments office is only open weekdays. I looked at my watch and it was 9.30am, too late to get myself down to St Johns in time to catch the senior doctor. No matter, I can wait till Monday, I’ll call Lauriston then and get an appointment.

So Monday comes around and I call Lauriston first thing hoping I’ll be able to get an appointment that day. No. The jobsbody on the other end says “oh you can’t book an appointment here, you’ll have to go and get your GP to ring St Johns and get an appointment at the clinic here…”. So with a funny feeling I was going around in circles, I went back to the university doctor during open access that morning, and they got me an appointment at Lauriston for this morning, Thursday. So after another 3 days of not being able to hear anything that goes on on my left side (not ideal for a barman), I went there this morning.

Would you believe it, I got the same junior doctor at the clinic who couldn’t help me at St Johns. I’m banging my head against a wall here and she still can’t get it out, but luckily there’s another doctor next door who she thinks can help. So she goes and gets him and he’s one of those old school patronising bastards who treats both me and her like 4-year old schoolchildren, but at least he’ll be able to help, I’m thinking. Again, no. He takes a look and after noting that I’ve got very strong cerumen glands, haven’t I (why yes doctor, I suppose I have), he puts some weird jelly stuff in my ear that will supposedly reduce the swelling, and gives me an appointment on Monday when hopefully someone’s going to do something about my friggin ear! Meanwhile I’ve got an oral exam tomorrow morning, which won’t be fun because I can’t hear half of what people are saying to me in English, never mind Chinese.

Just a bit of a rant.

The Media

It’s so important that it’s often given the title “The Fourth Institution of Government”, and yet sometimes the media is so frustrating, I’ve decided to have a rant at it. As you may know I’m at home at the moment, there isn’t an awful lot to post about and I’m just slightly bored so we’ll see how this goes. The keyboard’s also playing up so excuse any typos.

So what started this? My parents read the Daily Express, and when it arrived on Saturday morning, there was the usual sensationalist headline: “MILLIONS FACE ARCTIC EASTER” (well… seeing as there’s about 60 million people in Britain, you’d expect it to be about that many). Yes the Daily Express would have you believe that we all had to batton down the hatches and prepare for the worst. Each one of us may lose several family members and Britain will never be the same again. And yet here I am on the other side of a 4 day weekend and the weather’s actually quite nice, I only noticed about… 10 minutes of rain tops, all weekend, although admittedly it was quite cold.

Reading into the article, “…Britons will face the worst Easter weather in 25 years…” That’s hardly surprising since it’s the earliest Easter in 95 years. The weather isn’t any worse than usual, it’s just because Easter’s come earlier. Duh! And for the last… as long as I can remember, this “news”paper has had a picture/headline of either Madeleine McCann, Princess Diana or a member of the Royal Family on the front page. It’s as if there’s nothing more newsworthy.

Now of course none of this would matter except that the media is the only way most people know what’s going on, and of course so many people have somehow lost the ability to think for themselves that editorials in such rags are now public opinion. You can tell just by looking at the opinion polls each of these papers run every now and again. The Sun would have us believe that 99% of the population want to bring back the death penalty. My arse to that.

Take last night. I was having a conversation over the dinner table and someone mentioned Australia. My over-opinionated, overweight, over-drinking hypochondriac dad came out with the remark “well, it’s the only place to go!” I asked him what he meant and he said “well they’ve got it all right with immigration, not letting the bastards in.”

I replied “oh right yeah, because immigrants are the source of all this country’s problems…” I was being sarcastic, but before I knew it, everyone else at the table was agreeing with me as though I was serious. I wouldn’t mind, but none of them have ever met an asylum seeker, they know several immigrants but have nothing but praise for them, and yet they’re still complaining that “they’re stealing our jobs!” “They’re stealing our benefits!” (at the same time? They must be cleverer than I gave them credit for). All their opinions about anything vaguely political is drawn from what they’ve read in the tabloids, with no consideration given to it.

Don’t people realise that blaming immigrants for everything is downright dangerous? It’s what the Nazi’s did with the Jews before WW2! And why don’t we take into account the irony that if my dad actually did move to Australia, he’d be an immigrant himself! Of course he doesn’t see himself that way, so really, this is nothing but thinly veiled racism. He doesn’t want to keep immigrants out, he wants to keep the paki’s out.

I hope Richard Murdoch’s happy when he starts World War 3.