General Posts / Health & Fitness

Our NHS Is Broken

Our NHS is broken. As I sit in a semi-busy A&E waiting room with nothing to do to kill time except pay attention to what is going on around me, it is more than obvious the rot has set in, and it’s going to take more than a plaster to fix the cracks and glaring failures occurring right now. 

But those in charge, those with the power to stop the rot and try to reverse the damage, seem unable or unwilling to step up and do what is needed to protect what is arguably the UK’s most valuable resource. 

While the rest of the world looks on in horror at us residents drowning in medical bills, are we really in a position to gloat? And why isn’t anything being done to protect our health service from following down the same path? 

But back to A&E.

It’s a Tuesday night. And our 7 pm arrival was greeted with a room of lowered heads and glazed eyes, and from the off, you can’t help but wonder what time most of these people have been sitting in these blue plastic chairs from. 

In a room with ample seating, there is nowhere to sit; a tinny voice comes over the intercom advising us it’s a 5-hour wait from the time you checked in. And despite the NHS website and 111 services declaring chest pains a priority as was our reason for the visit, there is no urgency to get symptoms checked out. 

Grey’s anatomy it isn’t. There’s no swarm of nurses and doctors hooking us up to beeping machines. No bed to lie on or obvs being taken. No witty one-liners or jovial chats. It’s a stuffy stark room resembling a storage container and a whole host of other people crowding you, also suffering from something they need urgent medical care for. 

And the wait begins. Optimistic at just gone 7.30 pm that we would be seen quickly. As the minutes ticked by, this optimism was quickly replaced with despair and annoyance. Not for the staff, mind you, who were inundated with patients and struggling to keep up. Sighs and complaints were aimed at “the system”, one which is currently letting everyone down. 

8.45, and we finally got triaged.

Blood pressure was taken, pulse recorded, and we returned to the waiting room to embark on the next portion of our waiting time. All that was missing was a larger-than-life countdown clock ticking down to the final seconds. 

Except the final seconds weren’t coming, and our next call-in was for bloods and an ECG. Only to be told we needed another ECG in an hour. 

Time was already creeping towards midnight and another new day. But like the rest of the now subdued waiting room, although much more sparse than when we arrived, we sat back down and let the clock resume its seemingly never-ending countdown to an unreachable time. 

We talked. Fidgeted in our uncomfortable seats, which were absolutely not designed for 5 hours waits. And people watched with abundance. 

There were copious police officers herding handcuffed criminals through doors for checkups before taking them to custody. Young parents with little babies stressed they couldn’t get seen, and rightly so. Not one of us wanting to be surrounded by the eclectic mix of Wirralians congregating in the emergency department of our one major hospital. 

Test messages were exchanged. Work was completed somewhat in a rough and hasty manner, and then came another name call for an X-Ray we knew nothing about but dutifully undertook anyway. Luckily there was no queue there. 

Before we knew it, primarily due to zoning out with tiredness, we hit the 7-hour mark around 2.30 am. I headed to reception to get an update and was told we needed yet more blood to be taken 3 hours after the first lot. Again news to us. 

This brings us to now. It’s 3.30.

Blood tests are being taken. I’m propping up a temporary wall as my phone charges in a socket, frantically typing away. 

How much longer will we be here? What would have happened had a heart attack occurred? And when will the poor staff get an actual break? 

The NHS is broken, and right now, as it stands, I’m not sure it can ever be fixed. 

Update: second set of bloods done, and we need to wait another hour. This takes us to just gone 4.30 am.

Updated again: another ECG and the waiting room resembles in-character auditions for zombies on the walking dead. And someone is snoring. 

Last update: we finally left at 5.09 am. Like bewildered toddlers rudely awakened from a nap, we stumbled back to the car. We left the stragglers, the weary and the defeated patients behind, who meandered into the holding cell where time literally stops a little while after us to face their fate. The relatively short drive had us home at 5.31. 

Again a massive shout out to the overworked, underpaid, increasingly stressed NHS staff who live this nightmare day in day out without a whiff of the funding or support they need. They deserve better. We all deserve better.