Community spirit at its finest
I’VE read critical reports about how the NHS at grass roots hasn’t been working properly. Well, it has in my experience.
Our Village Hall became Honley Vaccination Centre in January, operated by Medicare and Friends of Honley on behalf of the NHS, with the help of an army of volunteers and village tradespeople. Thousands from the surrounding areas have been vaccinated.
The Fold where we live is so close we have an NHS Resident parking sign, Maria had both her jabs there, and we have seen volunteers work in rain and shine with unfailing good humour and courtesy. This is community spirit at its finest.
Staff from our Honley Surgery have helped the vaccination programme at Holmfirth Memorial Hospital without disrupting their local responsibilities. After my second jab in March at Holmfirth, I phoned the surgery because of severe back pain and was seen by my doctor that afternoon, after he had finished a Covid shift at Holmfirth.
Since the fall that damaged my right leg, I have had no problem seeing my doctor when necessary, and also had telephone consultations, which have resulted in me having further X-rays and another scan.
The care, friendliness and efficiency of all staff encountered, at Honley Surgery or Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, has been brilliant, despite the ongoing demands of the pandemic.
As far as I’m concerned, the NHS remains alive and well and is operating wonderfully in Honley at least, with a little help from its friends.
MY visit to Honley Village Hall to get my Covid booster jab was unusual. I went pushing a wheelchair. Not in it, pushing it. The Village Hall is close to where we live but my right leg is in the sort of state that if I were a race horse I would be probably be put down or out to pasture. Who said about time, too? The problem is I can walk a few yards but then tend to fall over. My answer was to take the wheelchair I bought last year when I was in a state with sciatica in my left leg.
Yes, I know. One leg is bad luck, but both smacks of chronic misuse. I put it down to playing football until I was in my 50s although there is a body of opinion that suggests standing around in bars for 60 years might have something to do with it. In my defence, being in pubs was an occupational hazard in my day, as I was professionally trained to believe that is where a reporter got his stories.
My wife Maria was in attendance to watch me get the needle. I have started calling her nurse. She gives me a selection of pills at breakfast and others twice a day, and I haven’t a clue what they are supposed to do.
“It’s a good job I trust you,” I said.
“You don’t trust me. You can’t be bothered,” she replied, which is true.
Although I was strangely bothered to look my sartorial best that morning and found myself wondering which pair of jogging pants went best with my grey T-shirt from Paris and my new grey running shoes. Jogging pants and running shoes and me with one working leg.
“Nobody is going to be looking at you,” she said, which is again true.
Invisibility comes with age.
Except that I discovered I was the centre of attention with a wheelchair, something I had never experienced before, because I had only previously used it indoors. People wanted to help, even when I was only pushing it and using it for support, which made me feel a bit of a fraud.
There was a required 15 minute wait after the jab to make sure I didn’t have a fit, and I was grateful for its comfort considering everyone else sat in garden chairs. Once discharged from custody, Maria pushed me part of the way home. Two friends, Debs and Steve, who were volunteers on point duty, were so impressed they couldn’t stop laughing. I gave them the royal wave. Or was it a Churchillian gesture?