Tales from the Gulag revisited 002.

Our relative’s recent admission to the local alleged first world Gulag showed once again how “good” the NHS is in terms of “caring” for its patients. Our relative was admitted for an investigation at a late hour which required complex equipment and time and having had said investigation was returned to their cell block where they had missed the food round.

They had been in hospital for almost 24 hours by then and the only food they had had was a chocolate bar they had put in their “just in case” admission bag. So they felt hungry. 

When they asked for food the computer data inputters caring for them, sorry we meant nurses, sorry healthcare assistants, told them they had missed the slop round and so our relative now had three options:

1) to starve (the Nicholson/Staffordshire preferred option for all NHS comrade patients),

2) they could have a sandwich

3)  or the data inputters could, if they could be arsed, which was heavily hinted at as being an inconvenience to their primary function namely chatting through the night, request a hot meal from a nearby hospital but that would mean the data inputters doing something other than sitting at a desk chatting about how busy their job was. It would also involve asking for a taxi to transport the meal which couldn’t be heated up on site from the big hospital and that was so expensive and so much trouble for them to do so when they had so much to write into the modern care plan/Kardex to say that all cares were given except at this stage feeding one patient.

So the sandwich option was selected no duress in this Gulag comrades.

The sandwich was a sight to behold. The bread was condensation covered under the cling film while the contents were dry which suggested that this an NHS “emergency” sandwich (probably from when the Cold War was still hot) which had been in the ward fridge for a while probably decades. It would be interesting to see if it could have been carbon dated so the default Nicholson option was therefore selected by our relative via the process of NHS Choice®. 

The private/public debate will continue but the cost of the taxi for the hot meal option declined by our relative out of a spirit of public good could have be more than offset by a 5 minute walk by a relative to a series of excellent local takeaways. A small amount of time spent waiting for the food to be freshly prepared would have been more than rewarded by an NHS patient having true Choice and a good meal after a day of starving something that Comrade Gulag Commissar Nicholson will not 

understand for he expects only Staffordshire care for “his” patients and a modicum of expenses for his bowl of rice a day subsistence living expenses. 

This was not to be for clearly there was a Health and Safety issue and an infection control issue of preventing takeaway acquired infection to the ward bay where our relative was confined which had 5 empty beds occupied by those patients who were on weekend leave.

Over the weekend there would be no whitewash deep clean of any imported takeaway meal ingested by our relative who would be discharged 2 days before the return of the weekenders so any moron who is not an NHS manager can see the infection “risk”.

The takeaway would have been from a heavily used student part of town and has numerous certificates to attest to their high hygiene standards but remember Staffordshire may have had the same or less so you can see why NHS staff were cautious. You can’t be too careful. The takeaway may also have been edible and contain calories something that an unappetizing emergency sandwich may have contained if anyone could face eating it.

Compare that with the experience of some NHS patients who landed up in a private hospital as part of the waiting list initiatives a few years ago who when they said they didn’t fancy the menu (it was in French and there were no chips only pommes frites) were invited to speak to the chef to ask what they would like to eat. And they got what they wanted – before the young enthusiastic nurse was taken aside and told they were NHS patients and not to do it again.

Praise be to the Party for ensuring that British POWs were probably better fed by Red Cross Parcels in the Second World War than UK patients are fed now if they miss the slop round. Criminals in the United Kingdom get more spent on their food and spend less on their TV television than NHS patients.

POWs at least have the Geneva Convention to protect them, criminals are well served by Human Rights law,  British patients however only have Sir David and don’t forget the joke of the NHS Constitution to do the same  . . .