A certain British actress has scooped a couple of minor gongs in the land of the free. Her speech must surely have been an üburlovey overacting experience to most people watching but not to your average UK frontline healthcare professional.
Clearly the Press have not spent a Monday morning in UK General Practice where the number of patients doing a Winslet is a daily experience. Examples of their acceptance speeches into alleged emergency surgeries include:
“I have had a really, really, sore throat for 2 hours” (Not just a sore throat for that long?)
“I am so dizzy” (but you have driven 20 miles in a Range Rover and stink of alcohol at 09.00hrs after an argument with your spouse and it is an emergency?)
“I am an emergency I have to be at work in 5 minutes” (but you claim to be ill with no symptoms and are fit enough to go to work?)
I am PREGNANT and have toothache. (Pregnancy is ALWAYS an emergency and we are not dentists.)
I am sure that you have seen loads of this (you are quite right we have) and you can do nothing for this (you are quite right we can’t. It is a virus so why are you wasting our time when everyone you know has exactly the same thing and we have not given them any treatment and they got better on their own?).
I have been like this for weeks (but it is an emergency).
I need my blood pressure medication it is an emergency (and you did not notice the fact that you were running out of pills for the last 4 weeks until you had none left?).
I need my blood pressure medication it is an emergency (I am going on holiday in 2 hours time and need to catch my flight. Got your passport and ticket? Of course you have wouldn’t want to miss your holiday you’ve paid for that).
I am really, really ill but you sound just like me. Have you got the same? (Yes and I have what you have but am still at work).
I have just flown back from Spain this morning, at 05.00hrs, and have been really ill for the last two weeks of my holiday . . .(but now healthcare is free it is an emergency despite the fact that you are well tanned rested and reeking of aircraft booze after the taxi dropped you off).
I am having a panic attack! (Well I will sit here and do nothing as you caused it and you will get it better. Call me when you finished your Winslet moment. and then we will resume the consultation).
The team at ND Central have been overwhelmed by theatricals this winter but not by much illness. If you think Kate Winslet was bad look at patients clutching their gongs, sorry props, called tissues, multiple layers of clothing, exaggerated facial grimacing, not being able to move limbs at all until asked to undress, faint pathetic voices, overbreathing, insisting their relatives talk for them they are “so ill”, swooning, saying they are having panic attacks, limping intermittently on different limbs, bursting into tears as they talk and over act for England in order to try to convince health care professionals there is something wrong.
Listen up dudes if you can walk into surgery and whine on uninterrupted for several minutes there is rarely anything seriously wrong with you. Seriously ill people are usually the very, very, very quiet ones not the really, really, really ill ones. They need urgent treatment but the Winslets among you delay that treatment.
This is NHS general practice and A&E everyday.
Lots of Winslets but very, very rarely genuine illness.
Praise be to the Party and all of the billions they provide to support amateur thespians in this country each year.
A thought, what if Kate gets an Oscar? Will she go into histrionics overdrive? We wouldn’t want to do the emergency surgery after that performance. Perhaps she should see her GP when she gets back . . . .
Heaven help that GP - a real actress doing a Winslet? They might get confused.
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