Learning in a time of Covid - Part one, a gift always looks to a gift
Published: Tue, 12/15/20
I live in the UK where the National Health Service has existed since just after the end of WW2. In other words quite a long time. Last year my family had rather more to do with the NHS than we would normally have wanted. In October 2019 I lost the sight in my right eye due to a detached retina which was repaired using laser surgery. A tricky operation, but detached retinas are a common enough event to give the eye surgeons plenty of practice at carrying out this procedure so it tends to be routinely successful. I am however, developing a cataract in my right eye (which apparently is not unusual following a detached retina operation) and I have an out patient appointment to consider my options this Thursday.
In December 2019 our baby Iduna was delivered by cesarean section because her mother has developed fibroids which made a natural birth highly risky. I was present in the operating theatre and it was quite an experience. I am glad to say that the procedure was a success and Iduna is a happy, healthy little girl who celebrated her first birthday last week. Her mother quickly made a full recovery too.
A few days after Iduna arrived my 93 year old mother collapsed following a massive stroke and did not recover consciousness. During the nearly two weeks she took to actually pass on she was cared for in Epsom General Hospital. The staff looked after her with great care and compassion and the family were able to spend time with our mother in her last days.
I list these three experiences to show that I, along with a great many other people in the UK, have a many reasons to be grateful to the NHS for the care it has provided from time to time. NHS care is also free at the point of delivery, which means that having my eye repaired, our baby delivered, and my mother’s end of life care did not cost us a penny. So, yes the NHS is a significant national achievement for the UK.
However, I have always had a nagging sense that one day the actual cost of the NHS would become apparent, and I do not mean in financial terms. There is a verse in the Havamal, the first part of which goes:
‘It is better not to pray at all than to pray for too much; nothing will be given that you won’t repay.
It is better to sacrifice nothing than to offer too much.’*
Back in March our government decided to impose the first lock down to control the spread of the Covid 19 virus. The main justification given? We must protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. The NHS will not be able to cope ‘if we let the virus rip’ as I believe our prime minister put it. At that point I realised that the karmic bailiff had arrived with the bill for seven decades of ‘free’ health care. Millions were spent on opening so called Nightingale Hospitals which were intended solely for the thousands of patients who would need to be sustained with ventilators. In the summer I helped load a lorry taking surplus medical equipment to Moldovia. Part of what we loaded were pallets of brand new beds which had been ordered specially for the Nightingale hospitals but were never needed or used.
I wrote to my MP in November and implored him not to vote with the government for a second lock down. He voted for the lock down anyway and wrote back to me with the justification that further draconian measures were essential to ‘protect the NHS’.
Could our government have imposed the restrictions we have lived under for the past 10 months without the appeal to ‘protect the NHS’? Other countries with traditions of authoritarian government just went ahead and did it. The UK prides itself on ancient freedoms, so another justification was needed and ‘saving our NHS’ did the trick.
regards
Graham
*Havamal stanza 145, Poetic Edda translation by Jackson Crawford
PS Of course every cloud has a silver lining. The big problem with the NHS has always been waiting. Waiting times for a necessary service or procedure. Waiting for appointments, I have had relatively little need of the NHS over my life time but I have still spent many hours sitting in waiting rooms until my turn comes round. Actually keeping appointment times always seemed impossible for GPs or hospitals alike.
Then, recently I have had two minor checkups, one at the health centre and the other at the hospital. Now, you are expected to turn up exactly on time for your appointment. You get met at the door and escorted directly to the consultation or treatment room. You are seen immediately and back on the street in a few minutes. Amazing, but I don’t know if it will last.
PPS If you asked me to send you a diary I hope it arrived, the post is proving to be highly unreliable this year. Please let me know if you asked but it has not arrived. If you would still like one I have a couple left, although I would prefer only to send them to the UK.