Doctor’s Dilemmas

In the GP magazine there was an interesting piece in their diary section (sorry cannot link to it) about a standoff about Christmas Eve working in a part of Northernshire. It went something along the lines of local Politburo tell a GP they can’t close on Christmas Eve afternoon so GP says OK we will ring local commissars every hour to see that they too are working. GP then allowed to close.

At our regular end of week meeting of the Resistance at the well know watering hole the café Michelle we were faced with a doctors’ dilemma.

No one had booked into the extra Saturday Brown shift (remember the silent f). That is right no one despite the huge numbers of commuting pensioners and children that live in the leafy suburbs of Northenshire needed an urgent consult with a doc on a Saturday. No one. Not one single patient.

Presumably most of ND’s patients would be in bed on a Saturday morning metabolizing their efforts from the night before or taking their ever affluent kids to the likes of ballet, horse riding etc although those at the coalface suspect they would be most likely letting their livers take the strain and letting their kids watch satellite TV on 6 foot plasma screens.

The dilemma the Resistance faced was to open or not to open on Saturday. A lot of debate took place. What if the Stasi sent round a patrol? Would we all be put into detention?

The extra Brown shifts are only for booked appointments. We do not see emergencies unless they literally walk in and die on us and we do not do home visits. We do not take phone calls as these are directed to the out of hours service. The surgery is not open as we are protected by a remotely operated locking mechanism we installed to protect our receptionists on the late nights as part of an Elf and Safety review.

So the question was do we inconvenience everyone’s family lives and come in for 2 hours and do nothing? This was decided by the precedent quoted above and the Resistance’s decision was based on we thought NHS mangers would do on a Saturday morning when they have no work to do.

Nothing.

Difference between doctors in the NHS and the thickerazzi that is the MHS (Management Health Service) is that one group work most of the week the other have a week of weekends.

Praise be to the Party and to Gordon’s little Brown shifts (remember the f) that are so loved by both the GPs (and their families) and more importantly by their receptionists, and their families, who frequently curse his wisdom for improving their family and weekend lives. Thank you Gordon for your little Brown ones.