Reflecting on the National Health Service .......... in the age of Covid

 Yesterday I was vaccinated.

It was the upshot  of my health and my age.

At which point the story could also reflect on those “anti vacs” who sit out there peddling all sorts of bizarre, misleading, and dangerous assertions.

But I won’t other than to say a recent Radio 4 documentary, offered up a historical perspective and set the correct correct.*

So, instead I shall reflect on my visit to the Jain Community Centre in Levenshulme.

The call from the GP had come at the beginning of the week and after being offered several appointments from the following day onwards I opted for Saturday.

I arrived early, waited my turn, and went through the procedure in less than half an hour, from walking through the door, being checked in, vaccinated, and resting for the obligatory 15 minutes.

Everyone from the volunteers through to the medical teams were helpful, reassuring and above all mindful that some at least of those receiving the jab might be a bit nervous.  There was plenty of humour mixed with the caring professionalism which marks the NHS out.

James Gillray, 1802

So that is it……. for once no great historical piece of research or interesting sets of maps and pictures, just a comment on  how the National Health Service continues to do what it was set up to do …. caring for all of us at the point of need in a way that would not surprise Nye Bevan or all those who advocated and ushered the NHS over 80 years ago.

And of course also a thank you.

Leaving me just to add those cartoons, from the anti vac James Gilray and Cruikshank’s balanced and more accurate comment on vaccination.

 George Cruikshank, 1808

Picture; The Cow-Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!—vide. the Publications of ye Anti-Vaccine Society, James Gillray, published June 12, 1802 by H. Humphrey, St. James's Street, and Jenner and his two colleagues seeing off three anti-vaccination opponents, the dead are littered at their feet. Coloured etching by George Cruikshank, 1808, Welcome Collection, https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=x7kbxaef&search=images

*The Long View of the Anti-Vaccination Movement, The Long View, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pffk

Travels with my cancer ………… part 3 …. unexpected consequences

Now, the fashion to have a tattoo has been embraced by all of our children bar one, and many of my friends also support a discreet one, but I have never been tempted.

Maori Chief, 1784 ...... Nana would not approve

It is a decision which has nothing to do with the procedure, or a revulsion at the whole idea of body embellishments, rather it is a promise I made 65 years ago to my grandmother.

I will have been five, and out of the blue Nana just asked me to make the promise, and in that half century and more I have never felt able to break that undertaking.

I suspect her knowledge of tattoos was limited to those that were carried by sailors, often crudely done, and limited to the name of a place or sweetheart.

And given the number of women I thought I was in love with over the years, it has proved very sensible not to have had their name permanently etched for all to see.

So secure in the promise and with unblemished skin I was not quite prepared for the request today to have two small tattoos on either side of my hips and another on my stomach.

I suppose given the outstanding care I have received during the two different cancers over the course of the last year, I would have been prepared to accept “I love the NHS” with a heart, or the more crusading “Defend the HHS!”, along with “Mr. Trump keep your hands off our NHS and while you are out it forget buying Greenland”.

But no, mine are limited to three little dots, which are there to aid the technicians in aligning my body on the bed for the 20 radiotherapy sessions which are part of the prostate cancer treatment.

Of all the experiences I thought I had signed up for in the treatment, three blue dots were never part of  what I envisaged.

Still there you are, .......... I trust Nana understands.

Location

Picture; head and shoulders, portrait of a Māori man, Gisborne Parkinson, Sydney, 1745-1771. Parkinson was a botanical artist on Captain Cook's 1st voyage to New Zealand in 1769. From: Parkinson, Sydney. A journal of a voyage to the South Seas. London, 1784

Travels with my cancer ....... part two ......... doing it all again

Now pretty much everyone who gets told they have cancer, has that very personal decision of who to tell, when to tell, and who to miss out on telling.

Be Happy, 1978

Of course, cancer is not the only illness which presents that set of decisions, but given its potential awfulness it does rank on the topics of conversation not easily had at a friend’s wedding, let alone a funeral.

Last time round, just a year ago we choose to keep  it to family and close friends, and given that one of our sons was in the Far East away from even basic internet the news was broken only when he returned.

In doing so it was not because of some desire to keep it secret, rather to spare a lot of people that awkward moment, where at a loss to know what to say, they fall back on, “it will be alright”, backed up with a plethora of statistics on recovery rates.

Both of which are fully understandable and a response I have done in the past.

You smile, feel embarrassed that they feel embarrassed, mumble “yes”, while quietly thinking, no it won’t be alright, it’s cancer.

Be Happy, 2015

That said, recovery rates for some cancers range from good to very good, so it’s all down to hoping for "the right type of cancer”, along with speedy and effective health care.

All of which I had with the first cancer last year and so far have been experiencing with the second.

The two are unrelated, other than both starting with c, and I joke that I am making a bid for the Guinness Book of Records under the heading of “The man who is going for the record of how many cancers you can have in one year”.

All of which leaves me as it did last time looking positive, and praising the wonderful NHS, with a promise of a note to who ever that small band of Tories choose as PM and another to the President of the USA, that I don’t want my National Health Service sold to anyone, and reasserting that  simple idea that it should always remain free to everyone at the point of need.*

Pictures; Be Happy, Manchester, 1978, Swiss Train, 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Travels with my cancer, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/10/travels-with-my-cancer-in-praise-of-nhs.html

Travels with my cancer ....... in praise of the NHS

In the four and bit months since I was diagnosed with cancer, I have been tested, advised on what was to happen, operated on and sent home from hospital.

I won’t say that my feet didn’t touch the ground but it was a roller coaster of activity which now just awaits the results to see if it has spread and review the options.

All of us deal with the news and the subsequent period of adjustment in different ways.

We chose to tell just the family and close friends, not out of any shame or desire to be secret but just because that fitted how I felt.

That said I was not averse to friends telling friends, and reflected that at some point I would write about it.

Of course what I would say remained to be carefully worked out.

There are some very moving and illuminating contributions about experiencing cancer, from blogs to Radio Four conversations and in that well tried practice, that if someone has done it and done it well I see no reason to repeat the process.

Instead, I am reflecting on the care and the continued care I am receiving from the NHS, which is not to depreciate other health services in other places.

I have family and friends who have and continue to receive the most excellent care from Italian and French hospitals but I was here in Manchester and it was the NHS who looked after me.

The speed with which I was fast tracked by my GP to the series of tests, the preliminary conversation with the specialist, and the eventual operation and after care cannot be faulted and underlines that basic principle that at a time when the individual is in crisis, the principle of free medical care at the point of need remains paramount and the measure of a civilized and just country.

We all know that the NHS creeks at times and in places, but to anyone faced with an illness it is there.

At which point I could start singling out people to thank, but to do so would be a very long list and not fair, because while I know the name of my consultant, and Macmillan nurses, the remaining team of doctors, nurses, technicians and cleaners along with kitchen staff, are pretty much unknown to me.

The important thing was that they were there, did their bit and for that Tina,  my family and friends will be thankful.

So ....... less the historical account of the NHS, or a detailed personal description of my cancer, and instead just that simple observation, that 70 years after its inception the NHS continues to offer first rate care, continuing to deliver its three core principles to meet the needs of everyone, to be free at the point of delivery, and based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

And that must continue to be defended against all who would look at the cost, or try to promote an increase in the scale of a private medical service.

Pictures; logos from the NHS, and for once I have not sought copyright