My last blog was about the reliability of the NHS – You can always rely on their organisational arrangements to be in total chaos.
Basically, I was told that a Renal hospital appointment I never had was being moved to a date which doesn’t exist. I was told that the new appointment was on Tuesday 20th November – but 20th November is actually a Saturday.
The same message also said I should attend the “Kidney & Urology Dept on Wednesday”… with no time nor date mentioned.
Neither the previous non-existent appointment nor the previous non-existent new date were on a Wednesday.
None of the above has been sorted out yet.
So imagine my lack of surprise when I got home around 8.00pm last night to find I had received a letter about a totally different new hospital appointment unrelated to the other two (or it might be three) previously confused appointments.
I have ongoing calcium level and kidney function problems which put me in hospital last May and this July.
The previous confused communication had been about the hospital Renal (ie Kidney) Dept and the Kidney & Urology Dept.
This new missive was about a forthcoming appointment with the Nuclear Medicine Dept at the same hospital with which, on Monday 29th November, I now have an appointment to have a Spine and Hip Bone Density scan or, as the letter says, “Bone densitometry DXA”.
This scan has never been mentioned before at any of my chats with my Kidney Man and my Calcium Man – and neither have my spine nor hip been a source of interest – but I’m prepared to believe it’s a legitimate part of the search for what’s wrong with me. I had a PETscan at the same Nuclear Medicine Dept in August this year. A PETscan is the one where they inject radioactive material into you and then (as I understand it) look at it circulating in the body.
I have been told by two separate consultants that I am a “man of mystery” because no-one has any idea what on earth the cause or causes of my calcium/kidney problem is/are.
This means, among other things, of course, that I cannot be treated because they have no idea what they should be treating. They know the result of my problem but they have no idea of its cause.
The actual doctors seem efficient and thorough.
But the NHS bureaucracy – like all large bureaucracies – is a catastrophe of incompetence.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 
Commiserations for your travails and I hope you sort it out soon.
At times like this I find myself screaming inwardly about the damage Thatcher and later Cameron caused to the NHS. Cabinet papers released about five years back showed Thatcher was intent on privatising the health service, and because she didn’t have enough backing – surprise there! – from her normally pliant cabinet members, had to content herself with management restructuring and outsourcing contracts which led in a short time to many hospitals being riddled with MRSA owing to poor cleaning from private for-profit firms. The worst ones had to be demolished and rebuilt. The NHS was in such a state when the Blair/Brown government took over, they resorted to PFI to finance reforms.
Thatcher was the gift that keeps on giving. And Cameron and Osborne pursued the agenda she wanted. The state of the NHS should be laid at the feet of the Tories. That should never be forgotten.
Wish you all the best with the Nuclear appointment. One of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. Was not helped by being run by a very matter of fact Russian Lady, who had no compassion at all.
It will be one of your lovely efficient Drs that ordered your DXA scan, mine was due to a history of steroid meds that cause gassy bones exacerbating my genetic disposition towards Osteoporosis. Our health service is much criticised and politicised, but in fact there is so much knowledge these days, and such an effort towards holistic treatment and inter disciplinary cooperation that this sort of confusion is likely, especially when multiple specialists are playing cluedo with your internal organs. The confusion on dates might suggest 1 or other is for next year, or perhaps some point in time within some parallel universe?
I think the parallel universe option is likely.