When you need assistance, make sure you find it! Excerpt from the Scottish Review, (SR). ...We are constantly exhorted not to visit A&E unless absolutely necessary and never to use its facilities instead of visiting our GP. But GP appointments are getting harder to make – you may have to wait many days or, in the case of the anonymous contributor to the SR Cafe last week, you may be fobbed off with a telephone consultation, rather than a face-to-face examination and discussion, or you may be ill at that most inconvenient time of the year – Christmas – when GP surgeries close for a ridiculous number of days. Personally, I would rather wait in a soul-numbing queue at A&E than risk a tired nurse at NHS 24 giving me advice that could hasten my end, rather than prolong my life. I dont think our passivity is anything to do with class or education. We are told that the articulate middle classes are better at arguing their case, and get better treatment as a result. B was an architect, a well-educated professional with a string of qualifications, who had no problems at all in having robust discussions with others in his field. Yet, when faced with a medical professional, he became a passive accepter of their advice, their wisdom. But passivity can kill. We need to challenge more, and often. Barbara Millar is former health journalist
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 19:11:51 +0000