Buried under an avalanche of inconsequential media tittle-tattle – did ‘x’ tell ‘y’ how he got his best stories, and did ’y’ tell his boss how he did it, and should ‘z’ not resign in disgrace for not knowing what ‘x’ didn’t tell ’y’…yawn…the above quote from Christina McAnea, Head of Health at public sector union UNISON demands our true attention.

“Little more than consumers’’; the phrase is still rattling round in my head – as someone who has spent the past week being ‘little more than a consumer’ let me tell you a thing or two about the dreadful, unbearable, fate that awaits you should you be daft enough to step away from the ‘marvellous’, ‘free at the point of delivery’ NHS – you will be appalled at the privations I have endured at the hands of a ‘privatised’ health service…..appalled, I tell you.

Just 24 days ago, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Not that I’d complained of anything you understand, hadn’t asked to be a ‘patient’, hadn’t even been to see the Doctor, but being ‘little more than a consumer’, one who was free to take my business elsewhere, you understand, he was keen to ensure that he continued to make a profit out of me. Like any decent mechanic, he was studying the latest analysis – something he insists on me having regularly, and determined that all was not well in the State of Raccoon.

He insisted I come in for a service. You would expect any decent garage to phone you, even at nine o’clock at night, if they feared you had a life threatening fault with your brakes wouldn’t you? Surely you’d take your business elsewhere if they didn’t? Well, I’m sorry to tell you that when you are ‘little more than a consumer’ they treat you the same way. In a privatised health service your analysis (assuming you even get one!) doesn’t get folded up by the receptionist into your notes to see if you present yourself as a ‘patient’, nothing so civilised – nope, they intrude into your private life at nine o’clock at night anxious to make a profit and demand you come in to be cured.

To cut a long story short, 20 days later, and that delayed by 10 days owing to my becoming too sick for the operation, I am back home again, no longer with ovarian cancer.

I selected – not for me the reassuring NHS system of ‘my nearest hospital’ – nope, I had to chose from a range of hospitals as to which one I felt would give me the best service, and entered the portals of the Bergonie in Bordeaux last Thursday.  I endured the private room, with TV, en-suite bathroom, a safe thoughtfully provided for any valuables, and meals on wheels three times a day, as best I could. The constant interruptions from nurses calling in to see if there was anything they could get me, was I anxious at all, did I need to ‘talk’, would I like them to show me how to use the TV, was almost unbearable. Fortunately it was not for long.

That room, ‘my room’ was only for the purpose of storing my clothes, and other bits and pieces, perhaps providing a bed for my husband when he needed to stay overnight, just a ‘hotel’ room in other words.

At 5.30am the next morning, having twice been shampooed and showered in disinfectant, hair dried lovingly and professionally by a young nurse the first time – the second time I had to do it myself, she was no longer allowed to touch me, but then I wasn’t allowed to touch the hairdryer either, making for an interesting dance – I was sat in a wheelchair on a sterilised cloth and delivered to ‘checkpoint charlie’ – double doors glided open to admit me, my nurse stepped back, and another sterile nurse invited me to switch myself to a fresh wheelchair. I was now officially a ‘sick little more than a consumer’. Nothing, right down to my wedding ring, was allowed to accompany me from the outside world.

There would not be the enchanting chatter of the five brats of my next door neighbour running riot round the beds at visiting time, no clod hopping husbands fresh from their job collecting household rubbish brushing past my bed delivering flowers to their sick wives, no Uncle Fred coughing and spluttering the last of his winter cold, no nurses rushing past with bed pans filled by another patient. Good God, they’d even clipped my toe nails shorter to ensure that I wasn’t harbouring an errant germ under one of them. It was a depressing vision of the world of competition between hospitals to see who can kill the least patients with MRSA.

I don’t honestly remember anything else, someone gave me a sweetie to suck which was nice of them, a thoughtful touch, and the next thing I knew I woke up, or at least I became aware that two delightful young men were massaging my naked arms and legs, well everything really, with some sweet smelling oils – they gave me to understand that they were ‘re-animating me’. That’s what they said anyway; told me that I had had five hours of surgery and would I like to speak to my husband…I wasn’t at all sure that I hadn’t failed to survive the operation and gone to heaven, but agreed to speak to Mr G anyway.

They dialled his number on their mobile phone – you didn’t think they’d let me take my dirty old outside world mobile phone with me, did you? And very kindly, after I’d managed to tell Mr G that I was stark naked and being given a massage by two good looking young men, finished the conversation for me, telling him that I was fine, they would look after me, and deliver me back to him as soon as possible – I had long since lost interest in Mr G and fallen asleep again.

For the next three days I floated in a sea of kindness, courtesy, and my new bestest friend ever, Morphia; my every waking need serviced by a succession of Sacha Distel lookalikes – and they were all men too. That’s what you get when nursing is seen as a serious profession. The only female nurses were young and appeared unmarried, anyone with extra stripes on their sleeves was definitely male.

On the fourth day, I was declared fit enough to return to the outside world, and returned to my ‘hotel’ room. Shock, horror, my husband wasn’t there – we didn’t know he could have stayed there – he was 100 miles away! Not to worry, someone would help me pack and they would get a car to take me home.

What! No comforting ward full of harassed bed pan attendants? No curtains pulled round dying patients in the middle of the night? No shared bathrooms with blood splattered walls? How could they do this to me?

Four days after major surgery they were refusing to let me come in contact with other sick patients and insisting that I return home, some nonsense about a sterile nurse coming to see me twice a day and the Doctor phoning me every night.

Now I know you won’t believe the next bit, and unfortunately I don’t have a scanner at the moment, but you are welcome to ‘call me out’ on this one as soon as I do, and I shall scan in the receipt…

They sent me home that afternoon, 100 miles from Bordeaux, in a chauffeur driven Mercedes, 216 euros on the clock.

I don’t have to pay that of course; about the only way in which the French ‘part-privatised’ health service even begins to match up with the dear old NHS is that it doesn’t cost me a penny. Free at the point of delivery, just the same as the NHS. Paid for out of my health contributions, just like National Insurance contributions. If you are unemployed or retired, then your ‘contribution’ is automatically credited to you. Just like the UK.

I do have private health insurance as well; it costs me 12 Euros a week, about £10. It would have covered me if I had wanted my ears pinned back, or my in growing toe nail dealt with, or a tattoo removed…or the dentist, or optician.

Since what ailed me was life threatening, then it was fully covered by the state. I just had to produce my ‘carte vitale’ proving that I am a French resident and fully paid up with my tax and insurance…of course if I’d just arrived here, eight and a half months pregnant, and expected free maternity services, I’d have been stuffed (sic). So unfair.

It’s an inhumane system here; cling onto your NHS, preserve it at all costs, until you’ve experienced a part privatised system, you really don’t understand the dangers and deprivation lurking ahead.

Now, do excuse me, nurse has just arrived to change my dressings (and check I haven’t figured out how to fiddle the damn meter on Morphia!) Mr G is preparing a little home made soup from the veg garden, and I’m off to settle down on the sofa and watch a good movie.

Enjoy your mixed wards and MRSA while you can and think of me, suffering,  as ‘little more than a consumer’.

Rick Hamilton
July 26, 2011 at 05:35

Maybe a bit late to comment on this fine post, but for what its’
worth……..

Here in Japan we pay a small contribution to the cost of treatment but the
bulk is paid by national insurance. I must say I had grave reservations about
going into a Japanese hospital but the system is so good and the level of
training and high tech equipment so reassuring that it was almost a pleasure.
The staff could not have been more polite or helpful. The consultant had been
trained in a world famous hospital in New York and spoke excellent English.
The attention to detail and pride in doing a thoroughly good job were very
impressive.

To receive this treatment you just have to be a fully paid up holder of the
national health card which allows you to walk off the street into any hospital
of your choice – in this case the best university teaching hospital in Tokyo –
and get world class treatment immediately. You are treated with the respect
and care which the Japanese routinely apply to any customer, because that is
what you are – a consumer for heaven’s sake – and the hospital wants and needs
you for its own financial health. It’s called competition.

The NHS is not the envy of the world, far from it, and the obsession with
everything being free at the point of delivery is a red herring. As they say
here “tada yori takai mono wa nai” ( there’s nothing so expensive as something
that’s free ).

Tonyb July 24, 2011 at 14:45

Thanks for your response Anna. I know what you mean about the pride that
the French take in carrying out their jobs. I found it the same with the Post
or the meter reader and I never found anyone who wasn’t literate.

I chuckled at your comment re the pre op preparation. I have vivd memories
of a Nurse coming in at around 5.30am,placing an operating gown on the bed and
telling me I must wash myself allover twice, in the shower with Betadine.
There seem to be about 10 different tyopes of Betadine. You smell all Harpic
afterwards.

Interesting about the UK was that I had to report to the UCH at 7am, the
morning of the op. There were about 20 people eventually herded into this room
and one by one we were called and questions asked and we were given gowns and
changed into them. At the appointed time a Porter came and walked me don to
the operating theatre, no such thing as a chair or a trolley. I was washed
down cleaned and shaved in the operating theatre by the Registrar.

I only ever met 2 male nurses in France though met with several back
here.

I also agree with about UK conditioning. The French are much more matter a
fact about human bodies I think than in the UK and yet whilst you are just an
animal you were treated with dignity.

They were tremendous with pain control in France, much better than here. I
managed to break the morphine machine. I clicked it too many times.

Not happy memories but an interesting experience all the same.

Tony

Michael July 24, 2011 at 13:19

Well I am glad that you are getting better! As a survivor of Stepping Hill
Hospital (I escaped before they could feed me what looked like an extra from
“Dr Who” or “Quatermass”) I can honestly state that treating the NHS as some
form of “Sacred Cow” that is held as above criticism by the mere mortals who
pay for it has led to the Death Service that it has become. There is no
incentive to save money rather than waste it, “managers” thrive but manage
nothing and achieve less other than to increase the size of their car and pay
packet. Sorry, best step away from the soapbox now…
TTFN and hope you have
a lovely recovery.

Joe Public July 24, 2011 at 11:48

Welcome back to Bloggerland, pleased to learn that things went
smoothly.

Hope the rest of the recuperation leads to s full recovery.

Even in a post such as this, you’ve created a new euphemism which will
undoubtedly get repeated elsewhere:

“…..massaging … with … sweet smelling oils, ….. ‘re-animating me’. “

permanentexpat
July 24, 2011 at 11:01

Welcome home, Anna!

Span
Ows July 24, 2011 at 10:49

Glad the overhaul was successful and that the engine is – clearly – running
so well.

Tonyb July 24, 2011 at 10:45

An extremely interesting post Anna and I wish you a speedy recovery. I
always find your postings most thought provoking.

I too have undergone surgery recently, 30 June, not in France but at the
University College Hospital in London where I had been referred by the head of
Urology at my local hospital. The reason for that surgery was to carry out
surgery to reconstruct part of the urethra, about 3 cm.

We lived in France for 10 years, ran business and all was well until 2007
where I was referred by my GP to a consultant and ended up after receiving in
retrospect a cursory examination being admitted for a Turps. Unfortubtely
after commencing the procedure the consultant couldn’t conitinue as he
couldn’t get the endoscope up the urethra. Op was abandoned to be repated
again under general anaesthetic instead of an epidural so he could go in
surgically. 5 days after that massive bleeding followed by 9 days in intensive
care. When about a week after coming out of IC the catheter was removed I
discovered I could no longer pee normally. We then had over 2 years of in and
out of hospitals. I found another consultant at another hospital and
eventually ended up with the Rangeuil in Toulouse. I had a total of 11
procedures, 3 general anaesthetics and 8 epidurals with them trying to “sort
it out”. In the process the urethra got broken leaving me with a fistula into
which the catheter was inserted.

In the meantime our business had gone down the pan and at the beginning of
2010 we returned to the UK. We found that to get help from the French social
security system was not easy and felt resentment from the French. We were
French residents, with Carte Vitale and had paid over 200,000 euros to the
French taxman.

On our return I registered witha GP,was immediately referred to a Urologist
here who took one look and said it was beyond his level of competence and was
sent to the Urological reconstruction unit at UCH in London. I was also taught
how to self catheterise which after having a catheter in for so long was
wonderful. My urethra has been repaired ina 4.5 hour operation and I return on
Thurday to have a urethrogram and hopefully if everything is ok the catheter
removed.

My experiences of the French system were that the GP’s, Nursing care both
in hospital and at home afterwards were fantastic but I am left thinking that
the Consultants are more concerned about their fees, if fact 3/3 have admitted
the reason they work so hard is beacuse they constanctly struggle to pay their
Social Charges which are so high in France. I had one Nurse who whilst being
wheeled out of an operating theatre to recovery rounded on me blaming the
Brits for the increase in property prices and doing the French out of homes.

I did like the lack of waiting, the single rooms and the food but I felt
that it was all rather mechanical, a process.

The NHS have been brilliant since my return, not just with this but with my
general medical care. It does from time to time appear to be a bit muddled
disorganised but I am much happier back here although much, much poorer as we
lost everything and at 66 having to restructure life.

Am I bitter, yes a bit but it was an experience, I’m still alive and have
projects that I want to work on so I don’t intend to be down for long.

Sorry about such a long post, I hope I haven’t exceeded everyones boredom
thershold.

Get well soon Anna

Tony

Gildas the Monk
July 24, 2011 at 11:01

A great contribution Tony. Sorry that you face difficult times. I do know
the feeling. These are the perils of being self employed. Wish you good
health and good fortune in the future

SadButMadLad
July 24, 2011 at 12:19

I think what your story and Anna’s shows is that there are many people on
both sides of the stream who care a lot about providing a good service to
their “customers”. In France it is stymied by the excessive taxes on the top
wage earners that force them to work too hard. In the UK it’s the
adminstration and missmanagement that stymes the nurses and doctors from
doing a good job. In both cases you will generally get a good experience,
but there will be outliers. Its the number of them and how they are handled
which indicates if the organisation as a whole will go down the bed pan or
if they are just the usual statistical blip.

John July 24, 2011 at 13:03

Well it depends on where in the UK you are. UCH, and hospitals in West
London are excellent but go a bit further out and standards start to fall
quickly. Maybe it’s because all the best consultants have their private
practices nearby and thus their NHS practices are all concentrated in one
area.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2011 at 13:16

Tonyb,
I’m sorry to learn of your experience. Obviously things can go
wrong, in France as well as the UK – if you have seen my earlier posts, you
will know that I was inadvertently given an injection of something I am
hopelessly allergic too, and gave everybody a hell of a fright. It hasn’t
all been plain sailing. My point really was the pride that the French take
in providing care, which shows itself in restaurants not just hospitals –
its not seen as a low grade unskilled job that anyone can do.
I’m also
fascinated by the number of male nurses. (Fascinated and charmed!) As a
woman in the UK, I realise that I had been indoctrinated into the ‘men can’t
be trusted’ ideology. Not that I was aware of thinking that myself, but now
in France, every time I found myself being intimately examined by a man –
without the door being left open so ‘wee feeble woman’ me could whimper for
help from the receptionist, or having a catheter changed – by a man! Whoa!
It’s not that I minded in the slightest – just that I am fascinated that I
even noticed…obviously the French don’t. The only reason I noticed is ‘UK’
conditioning.
The cotisations are high in France – I don’t have the
figure to hand at the moment, but they are not actually that different to
the total of tax and insurance paid in the UK. They ARE much stricter as to
whom and under what circumstances they pay out.
You obviously had a
better experience of the hospital food than I did, maybe I just didn’t have
much of an appetite, but I thought it was disgraceful, unmitigated,
crap!

Malcolm
Saunders July 24, 2011 at 10:33

You just have to be patient. Patiently take your place on the waiting list,
have patience with the abusive, smelly and noisy crowd of drunk or dissolute
consumers clogging the A&E and be patient with the permanent organ damage
from hospital borne infection that will shorten your life.

Apparently there is a line in the North Korean national anthem in which
people sing that they have ‘nothing to envy’ in other countries because they
are so well looked after by their disgusting dictatorship I am reminded of
this every time I read how the NHS is the envy of the world and how we must
preserve at all costs the matchless excellence of this vast, bureaucratic
money pit.

Tell a big enough lie often enough and it becomes the truth in the eyes of
those who repeat it. It doesn’t matter whether you are a starving child in
North Korea or a ‘patient’ in the UK. If only we had the chance of being
consumers and the scales might drop from our eyes.

Alternatively,hope to fade happily in the loving arms of St. Morphia.

JuliaM July 24,
2011 at 09:51

Oh, to be such a ‘consumer’! No wonder the vested interests fear it so…

“…and they were all men too. That’s what you get when nursing is seen as
a serious profession. “

Interesting! Has nursing not been seen as a ‘typical female occupation’ in
French history, then?

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2011 at 10:35

It’s not that Julia, more a case of ‘careers are for men’, whereas women
get married and then stay home with the family…so it is only the men who
stay on and get higher qualifications and progress up the career ladder. No
doubt there are women who do too, but in the Bergonie it was just noticeable
that all the older and more senior nurses were male.

wh00ps
July 24, 2011 at 09:31

Medway hospital now doesn’t allow taxis onto the site, with the result that
my wife’s grandmother, freshly discharged with an open wound on her leg and
‘too sick for surgery’ had to walk about half a mile from her bed to the bus
stop.
The same hospital that ‘doesn’t do triage’ in their A&E and
instead a nurse ‘assesses’ you from behind the reception desk while two
receptionists look on, and enter the nurses ‘assessment’ into the
computer.
In a free market, they’d be closed in a week.
On a lighter
note, glad to hear your op went well

gladiolys July 24, 2011 at 11:54

Medway’s health provision has been a basket case for years. I was born
there in the 50s and when I became “politically aware” the uselessness of
its services and under-funding and poor organisation (it was run by
administrators in Bexhill, Sussex, for God’s sake) were one of the things
that shocked me most.

My sister still lives there and she was telling me about it’s horrors as
her mother-in-law recently underwent its myriad complexities. I commiserate
with you.

Glad you’re better Ms Raccoon.

Jiks July 24, 2011 at 09:20

Good to hear you are doing well, Anna.

The contrast between your treatment “over there” and what me, my friends
and relatives back in this blighted land have experienced, or more accurately
suffered, is pretty stark. To paraphrase “everyone said the NHS had the
standards of a third world institution, I stood up for it and said it
hadn’t.”

If only ANY of the UK’s services could be ruled by results and common sense
rather than targets and political correctness…

binao July 24, 2011 at 08:17

I think you’ve said it all, and for those that don’t believe I’ve seen and
used private medicine abroad and here, and National Death Service hospitals
very recently. People without that experience seem pathetically grateful for
what my local NHS hospitals offer as ‘care’.
A bit like a meat processing
plant but without the hygiene. It isn’t money, it’s low standards.
I do
find it odd that UK hospitals have infection problems, and still expect to
solve it by asking visitors (but not staff) to wipe their hands with
disinfectant. A bit optimistic with doctors and visitors roaming about the
wards in their street clothes. Not to mention their footwear fresh from
dogshit alley by the carpark. Perhaps that’s why cleaning seems to mean
obsessive polishing floors.
Try getting onto a farm when there’s foot &
mouth about.

Gildas the Monk
July 24, 2011 at 08:08

Both beautifully written and thoroughly thought provoking. There are parts
of our NHS and Care Home system which are a scandal. In fact, at times it
strikes me that the tag “National Death Service” is well earned.
I wonder
if one worked out “head for head” or “pound for pound” whether the French
system is better resourced than our own? I rather suspect not. I suspect the
difference is the management and culture of those who run it and are employed
in it. This was always been one of my biggest gripes about “Nu Labour” and
their ilk. Everything is measured by how much money has been recklessly
chucked in the direction of the issue. Nothing of the result, the person to
person contact, the individual experience, is taken into account. But the
figures look nice. It was the ultimate in Accountancy Orwellianism.
Phew.
Where did that come from!
By the way Anna, glad you are feeling better, and
tell Mr G to get that soup on…

Single
Acts Of Tyranny July 24, 2011 at
07:37

Having had Mrs SAoT in an NHS hospital some years ago and having such joys
as:
~ literally frogmarching a doctor to her bedside
~ later standing
over the bastard until a prescription was written
~ cleaning the room
myself, daily as no-one else did
~ providing all the food because honestly,
what was on offer was, shall we say, sub-optimal, and best of all….
~
querying treatment prescribed by a junior doctor because Google suggested
otherwise to such an extent that both the consultant (and melodramatically
‘security’) were called. Google proved more reliable that the JD
~ querying
whether another JD had showered, wondering why he hadn’t shaved and noting
that the ‘homeless chique’ clothing did not sit well with his alleged job.

I realised it was time for BUPA and joined the next day.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2011 at 07:47

Morning SAOT,
I must admit that the unshaven look is very popular in
France, I believe they use special razors to achieve it, and they definitely
never wash their work clothing – they all wear extremely (extremely!) well
fitting paper clothes, a fresh set for every shift……