I've happily not been very familiar with doctors and the NHS until this last year when I've witnessed at first hand what they do. I've managed to avoid any long term contact with the medical profession. The last year and November changed all that, and I had the chance to 'people watch' on an epic scale.
Most of the people I watched were the other patients, as waiting rooms started to figure larger in my life. Generally populated by what is termed 'the elderly' a description I've never attached to myself. They are elderly I'm just mature.
A waiting room at Gloucester Hospital to see an eye surgeon who looked about 18 and was absolutely charming. It was just a precautionary measure after an eye check. Others in the waiting room had more obvious eye issues. You'd expect a waiting room to be crowded, it wasn't. We were dotted around the large room, choosing the seats that were an optimum distance from another patient. One gentleman brought his own seat as he drove in on his powered wheelchair, hitting every available nearby obstruction as his wife tried to instruct him on his driving from his side. Instructions he took no notice of whatsoever. Eventually he came to an acceptable parking spot, or what she thought was acceptable, as she leant forward and simply turned the machine off. Much muttering from the grumpy driver eventually abated. It was like a scene from a 'Carry On' film.
A more recent visit to yet another waiting room in Cheltenham. This huge room for outpatients again populated almost entirely by people over 60 or so it seemed, was again not desperately crowded giving us all a chance to sit a distance away from others. Specialities divided the room, rheumatology in one quarter and other ailments in each other quarter. Generally not a word spoken unless to the receptionist behind the screen in her speciality Christmas jumper. Staff spoke to each other and pointed in various directions trying to get people to the right small room and doctor. To break the silence a radio station was playing From a tv screen which had Greatest Hits Radio emblazoned on the screen and the list of elderly DJs playing the hits from when you didn't need to be in a waiting room. Christmas hits from yesteryear and in particular Slade and their dreadful song that resurfaces every year is enough to send you looking for the phsiciatric doctor. It seemed that the DJ's cheerful banter was entirely lost on this audience, as he droned on with his mindless competition about which band and what year their one hit wonder was made. He full of possibly even more useless information than the entire waiting room could put together. So Betty in Scarborough doesn't know that Toto had a hit in 1973, absolutely no one in this waiting room cared or was even listening.
Possibly the oddest waiting room I experienced was A&E where I was parked for a while, thankfully relatively short time, before going through the 'gates of admission' for my stay and 10 days of custard puds. Dystopian was the word for it, with areas crowded with people almost all who seemed in various states of real silently suffered real pain, and all waiting for something to happen. It was like am allegorical painting from centuries ago, with the addition of special lighting from mobile phones illuminating some of their pained expressions. Not a place anyone would want to be in, though the odd plucky remark from sufferers did give you a smidgin of hope in human nature.
Checking out the meaning of dystopian which is "an unfair society where there is much suffering". I'll let you judge for yourselves if being trapped in a waiting room with ex radio 2 disc jockey playing so called 'Christmas Hits of the 70s" is dystopian but I was very glad to get out of there.
May I take this opportunity, while you're waiting, to wish you all good wishes for Christmas and a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.
Overlooking flooded fields from the woods on a recent walk near the Severn
Just got to end on hospital custard, the cure all and antidote to dystopia.
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