Friday, July 07, 2006

11.33am: Corridor, Homerton Hospital

Sitting in Homerton Hospital, waiting for Miss C my consultant surgeon to see me again. My appointment was 40 minutes ago. But there are still 3 people in front of me.

Just seen Barbara Roche - the ex- home office Minister. What the hell is she doing here? Presumably she doesn't represent anyone in Hackney. It must be a friend or relative. She's very smartly dressed and doesn't look like she's got cancer. Anyway she's trying to push in.

Typical. For a year now I've been trying to tell the right wing of the Labour Party what a mess Blair and Hewitt are making of the NHS.

Then I get breast cancer and one of their clan tries to push in front of me in the queue.

I'm also making a list of things to complain about with regards to the Hommer (as me and Phil like to call it). It is a very good hospital, but if you spend long enough in here then you can do this.

They've got this lovely outpatients waiting area - natural light, good ventilation, spacious and Rennie-Macintosh-esque artwork all around so you don't feel like you're contracting MRSA every five seconds. You register there. But then, 2 seconds later they call you into an unventilated, artificially lit, 200 degree temperature corridor. Where the only seats are opposite the toilets. There they keep you waiting for 2 hours. There is no need because the nice bit is just round the corner.

Oppressive is an understatement.

Me and Phil had a row about it. He didn't want to move away from the toilet seats when some others, still on the corridor but further down away from the toilets came free. I moved - alone. Ha, I thought. I am independent. About a minute passed and he came to sit next to me. I gave him a rewarding kiss.

Now directly opposite me, rather than watch people grapple with the locking system of the hospital toilet door and hear various suspicious splashing sounds there are 'Poems for the Waiting Room'. BUt - on an A4 piece of paper, 3 yards away too small for me to read.

Yes, I could stand up and go and read them. In fact, I've just strained my neck. What would Madeline, our Alexander Technique tutor think of that I wonder?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree, this is relatively good news and all your friends and relatives to whom I have spoken are of the same opionion. Now that it seems that you are referring to us by initials only and not defaming us and our politics too publicly, we might be coaxed into engaging with your blog site and speaking for ourselves. As a consequence, if I'm allowed to speak, may I say this - I feel much relief.

Meanwhile, I, too have seen the Poems for the Waiting Room but they're by people like William Wordsworth and John Clare and D.H. Lawrence (in these Northern Wastelands at least) - all male and all annexed by the Great Tradition. Why don't we give space and voice to the people (many of them women) who are sitting in the corridors of our hospitals in 2006? I bet there's a funding opportunity for a freelancer here. Have a go at it while you're off mainstream work. Love from us all up North.

tatton said...

Yes, thank you Northerner. I will seek Blaglady's advice who is an expert in all these things. Although she is a Southerner.