NHS Rocks

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:15:56 +0200

It's taken me a while to get round to writing my first blog.

I have spent the last 18 months out of action following a car accident. the deatails of injuries are boring but the treatment I've received during the last year and a half is worth noting.

Firstly we ( Janet, my wife, was also in the car)were helicoptered from the scene of crash to Hereford County Hospital and within no time I was in an operating theartre having plates attached to my fibila and tibia on my right leg followed by a repair to my left patella. Hereford was fantastic - apart from the food which I found dreadful but everybody else loved.

We were discharged after some 12 days and returned home to recruperate in the comfort of home. This was in April 2006. Events after that are a bit complicated and tedious so I will summarise,

August - infection in leg - spend week in West Wales Hospital Carmarthen. This happens 3 times in all as I finish course of antibiotics the infection returns. So I spend a total of 3 weeks as an in-patient in Carmarthen. In the meantime I am refered to a specialist in Morriston Hospital, Swansea as it is now apparent that the bones are no longer healing.

I am admitted to Morriston in Novenber to have an Ilizarov Frame fitted - this takes 2 operations and involves a stay in hospital of nearly 3 weeks. Once back at home I am visited twice a week by a district nurse (to have dressings changed)and I return to the hospital every 2 weeks to see consultant and have specialist nurses check frame. I shorten the leg then lengthen it and then wait for healing. This has been good but not quite good enough so I am now waiting to go back in to have my tibia "nailed". this should happen in the next couple of weeks.

I'm sorry that the above has been a long winded and a little self centred but my point is that all of this has cost me nothing (well I am 60 so I have paid my fair share of tax).
The treatment I have received as been fantastic and I sometimes better and I deserve. Sure I have spent the odd few hours in A&E Departments waiting for beds to be available etc. but, come on, what's a couple of hours wait, not as though I'm lying in the car park waiting.

I also heard Nicola Horlick on Desert Island Discs this morning talking about her experiences with the NHS - was moved to tears.

Final message is thus stop knocking the NHS we have come to expect far too much from the organisation. It generally offers a superb service and we should all be proud.

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