MEDICAL MATTERS

[Stanley]

MEDICAL MATTERS

07 April 2002

I’m going to the doctor’s tomorrow, I suppose as you get older these visits get more frequent. I can remember the time when I had to send a recent photograph so that Arthur Morrison could recognise me! Things have changed and so I think have my attitudes. I have begun to recognise that I need more help.
One of the things that is worrying me is that I might be getting to be a bit of a hypochondriac. I saw a TV programme on Diabetes last night and remembered that both my Father and brother succumbed to late-onset diabetes so perhaps I ought to have a test. The other problem is that when I had an operation on my undercarriage last year the nurse came to me as I was leaving the ward and whispered in my ear, ‘If you have any problems with your water let us know.’ Great! Then a mate of mine in America, an intelligent man, found that his kidneys had failed on him and he didn’t know it was happening. I think I need a check up! (Eight years later I found that I had indeed got very mild Type 2 diabetes.)
All this got me to thinking, my mind went back to Ernie Roberts being taken to the dentist by his mother with raging toothache in the 1930’s and being told to come back when she had the money to pay. I can remember my mother having to pay the doctor when I was young. My recent Floridian visitor was most impressed when she found that I could go to the doctor and get treatment and drugs at no cost, she told me that even though she has a good medical insurance for which she pays every month it costs her a minimum of £40 if she has to go for treatment. I spoke to her yesterday by 'phone, she has a severe cold and will not go to the doctor until it gets serious for this reason. I began to realise that although we complain bitterly about the state of the NHS we still have a wonderful service which operates well most of the time.
So, I shall go to the doctor tomorrow without any worries about money no matter what treatment I need. When you think about it, this is a wonderful comfort and we should be very grateful that we live in a country which is enlightened enough to support a National Health Service with no means testing.
Mind you, there has been one retrograde step in the last couple of weeks. The Park Road surgery has installed the dreaded ‘Voice Mail’. I rang the other day to make this appointment and the system ran me round the houses for a while before I actually got a human voice, in future, whenever possible, I shall walk up to the surgery and speak to a human being!
If you have had occasion to ring the police helpline lately you will know that they also have an ‘improved’ system. 18 months ago when it was installed I wrote to the Chief Constable and told her that I thought this was a mistake because channelling all the calls through a central unit at Burnley separated the local police from the public and this must be a bad thing. She arranged for me to go to Burnley and speak to the officer in charge of communications but he seemed to be more interested in justifying the new system than listening to my comments. Any of you who have been watching the letters column will realise that Councillor Jackie Taylforth had exactly the same trouble, her solution was to walk up to the police station. As I have had the same experience recently I have written to Mrs Pat Clare, the Chief Constable again. I shall let you know what comes of it.
Just as a matter of interest, the last Town Constable in Barlick was Thomas Waite, he was a clogger and farmer and lived at Hen House down Gisburn Road. He was superseded by the West Riding Constabulary when they established their first office in the town in 1856. It was perhaps easier to get hold of help then than it is now! Never mind, they tell me that we are to get three ‘Community Policemen’ shortly whose task will be to patrol on foot and interact with the public. The only problem I can see is that we won’t be able to ring them up when we want them, perhaps they could have a mobile phone?
My mind goes back to the doctors I have known, Arthur Morrison at Earby, John Wilfred Pickard here in Barlick, I still have John’s old stethoscope hung on the wall, he gave it to me after he retired so I could listen to Mary Jane and James at Bancroft! He used to spend a lot of time in the engine house with me and I once asked him if the stories about him were true. He smiled and said that some had more truth in them than others.
When I was watching the TV programme on Diabetes the other night I remembered something that Arthur Morrison told me 40 years ago. He used to test everyone who went in the surgery for diabetes and I asked him why. He said that one person in five had some incidence of the condition and knew nothing about it, the only cure was to test every patient. This was exactly the message that the programme was giving, perhaps our old doctors, eccentric as they were at times, knew a thing or two. I quite like the present lot in Barlick but it remains to be seen whether they leave such a rich legacy of funny stories. I hope they do, but I have a feeling that those days might have gone. A pity, it made life a lot richer and more human, one thing is certain, a voice mail system isn’t going to help!
07 April 2002