Doctors strikes. train strikes. not withstanding that somehow two appointments have already gone ahead this week.

As a teacher I deliberately opted for part time. I was on 0.7. Why? Because then I could see my family, get them to their schools, matches, appointments etc. I still did a full week of teaching. I still marked and prepped all weekend. I still did everything but the dull CPD meetings! I see from the press that there is an assumption that hospital Consultants are paid £100k. That’s not actually quite right is it? Because they usually work at say 0.6. So that is £60k before tax etc etc. Then they work 0.4 in private care. Why do they do that? How else can they afford a house within on call duty distance of the hospital? How else can they afford congestion charge, parking, or even an electric car scooter or whatever. The NHS does well out of that. Because whilst technically not at NHSland but in Private-land their phones ring ping and ting constantly with NHS work. Then they rush back to NHS land at a moments notice for extra support work surgery etc. Then they do the same all weekend. Off duty or not its all 24/7. Or am I wrong. Please someone tell me. Tell Steve Barclay to sort this out. The patients are getting worse not better.

Monday was lung function and difficult asthma ! As I have oft repeated difficult patients or difficult asthma. Whatever, the hospital is Barts. Smithfield market. Amazing ancient 900 years old place where my mother in law would have been a nurse. Bet she had hat and apron!

The lung function tests are hard work. After being weighed and measured the tests involve puffing and huffing into various contraptions. The chief lung man did mine. In the pauses for data collection, inhaler effect etc….How we chatted. About his covid experiences. ( terrible death tolls daily. )To my daughter’s experience- (terrible deaths daily). It really was the worst of times. He talked about his children. My grandchildren. Swapped photos. We put the nhs to rights. His chief complaint? The non clinically trained managers telling him to speed up lung function tests. As though it’s some kind of go faster conveyor belt. Patients don’t conform to norms. The inhalers take 15 minutes to work then the tests don’t always work quite right…it all takes time..and is not a finite test.

Then it was downstairs to the consultants’ queue. A nurse weighed and measured me again. I’d gained a kilo by doing nothing more than huffing and puffing upstairs! A notice on the reception desk asked patients if they had changed their GP? If so the hospital is unable to change it. The patient must ask the GP to change it. Eh? How does that work? Bonkers.

The Consultant Mr Asthma was on his own. No junior doctors ( #strike) so he was doing everyone. He told me ( when I eventually saw him) that he was exhausted and pissed off. Looking forward to the unpaid leave that the Consultant’s strike would provide, so he could catch up with sleep. That’s crazy I said. Yep. He agreed.

We went over the lung stuff. The clinical trials. University of Leicester had stopped the trial due to lack of patients. Then he announced I was to be the first patient to start a new ‘biologic’ drug. Monthly injections in hospital. Hopefully moving onto self administered after a while. Wow. That’s amazingly brilliant. The idea is that difficult asthma people use up a lot of steroids, gain weight on that, get admitted to hospital and generally cause a lot of problems expense and worry. This new stuff is meant to stop all that. I’ll lose that kilo I gained upstairs! Yet another raft of questionnaires how was my breathing? My mood? My sleep? Blah blah. I could have been filling in all that while I waited squinting at the screen to see if my name was called ! But no, the questionnaire was handed to me afterwards. More delay. More squinting! Then I wandered off to find a train. That eventually accomplished I,arrived home,grumpy and tired #strikes on trains

Tuesday. Today. It was the early train again to get to the ‘Tower’ the ominous sounding UCLH building for MRI. I waited and waited. Lots of patients seemed to be arriving with the ‘wrong’ letters. It cannot have been a coincidence that the letters poor patients clutched had wrong GMC numbers on, or wrong something. The reception team were as helpful as possible and even tried to ring various GPs. Of course none of them could get through. Patients were then told to go home, go to GP and start again. That’s dreadful. As for me….I had no such letter, just an ERIC reminder text… but… eventually ‘ Mary Empkins’ was called ….as ever that’s my hospital name. God knows why. I obediently stood to attention! As is customary the paper questionnaires which reception had given me are read out loud …do I have any metal implants? Allergies? Hospital admissions? I’ve already filled it in. It’s on the bloody ERIC system yet still we go through it. My answers getting shorter every time. Any metal in your body? See above ! Arghh.

Then we hang around waiting for the Nevro spinal implant rep to come to turn it off. Well actually I can do that but she has to prove in front of Mr Consultant Clinical Sciences. After that I I have to turn the Medtronic Sacral,nerve stimulator to MRI Compatible. He has to check my screen says it’s activated or deactivated as it were … then it’s into the magnetic field. Exhausted after all that I slept through the whole dam hour of imaging chugging and whirring away. The results will not be sent out for ages. No doctors. #strikes

• Patients with passive and active implantable medical devices are regularly referred for MRI. Clinical Scientists advise on the risks posed by the interaction of these devices with the extreme electromagnetic conditions associated with MRI and methods of minimising risk.

Back to St Pancras and trains. Those are also up the creek. Eventually home again. Phew. Results of that MRI will take weeks nay months. No doctors available to report. # strikes.

UTI is next to be sorted. In order to avoid the screaming frustration of GP yelling at me. Itook an msu to the private lab. Jerome’s Secretary sorted that. Now we wait. Not sure what meds to take it’s the spasms of pain up my left kidney which is a effing dreadful . Let’s wait.

Wednesday. I have just been told the lab has rejected the sample because it’s mixed growth therefore the patient must have contaminated. The words just make me and I bet all patients burst into tears. As though somehow we have deliberately messed up the sample. As the sample is collected via incredibly aseptic conditions using CISC . Ie disposable catheter. Ie not opened to the elements until the very last minute. Hand washing. Anti bac gel spread everywhere. Its not going to be contaminated. ARgh. So my scrawling in my best imitation of a surgeon’s handwriting: ‘please test for all sensitivity if mixed growth..patient is complicated urology….’ Usually that works for the private £50 lab. But not this time. Oh …..shhhh…..****

NHS will implode this week. Junior doctors then Consultants #strikes.