Vive le NHS!

Yesterday I ranted on a bit about a bad experience that I had with a hospital dentist many years ago. I feel that I should add that I have also had many good experiences with the NHS. My own dentist is lovely and has helped me to take good care of my teeth. My opticians are brilliant and actually saved my sight when I had a detached retina a few years ago. I have visited the A&E department at Hairmyres many times on my own behalf and with other family members and even colleagues and pupils, and they have always sorted us out. Our GPs are great and I actually quite like their new triage system because it means that you can avoid having to make an appointment unless absolutely necessary. The nurses and doctors in Intensive Care at Hairmyres are wonderful. 

A long time ago a really helpful admin lady arranged all of Mum’s cataract appointments for during my school holidays. And the few bad experiences that I have had (mostly back when I was taking care of my Mum) have been dealt with fairly quickly when I complained. There was one time in Hairmyres when a nurse said something really off about Mum and I just about exploded, and the ward sister came rushing in and apologised and sorted it out straight away. 

The time that Mum was transferred to a different hospital without me being informed (they had left a message on my phone but it didn’t show on the screen so I didn’t see it) was a mixture of bad and good. They should never have transferred her without letting me know properly. However when I came in at visiting time and saw her empty bed and thought that she was dead and got a terrible shock, the nurses made me a cup of tea and took care of me. So did my kind and wonderful son Davie, who was with me that evening. Which of course reminds me that the midwives at Rutherglen Maternity hospital delivered my three healthy children.
So, nobody’s perfect (including in my own profession of teaching!) but I have many reasons to be very grateful to the NHS, which is 70 years old this year.