On Saturday Too little help for country folk who get old

WHAT a terrible morning I’m having. A number of things have gone wrong, none of which have been my fault – and I’m having to deal with it all before writing a word of this column.

I wonder how many other people have muttered something similar this morning? Indeed, how many have had a good old moan this week after hearing pessimistic declarations from the Prime Minister and Chancellor? Millions, I’ll bet.

All that negative energy… Human emotion which could have achieved so much if only it was harnessed in some good and positive way.

One way of dealing with being fedup is to have a look around and realise how lucky we are compared with others. I don’t recommend it as it seems a rather mean-spirited way of making yourself feel better – but it can put problems into perspective.

Take the example of the Brendon Hill farmer who phoned this week hoping I could get his story into the paper. Both he and his wife have cancer and a while ago the poor woman noticed some kind of growth appearing on her back. The old man was able to take photos and send them off to the doc’s – and she was required to go all the way to a Bristol hospital for a biopsy.

Being old and ill himself he couldn’t manage to drive her the 120-mile round trip, so hospital transport was arranged. All well and good. But the biopsy took longer than expected.

The old lady had worried about this possibility and the driver had assured her he’d wait, but when she came out – in a wheelchair and feeling weak after the procedure – he’d gone.

She had his number so called on her mobile (a thing not all old countryfolk have, especially when they live in areas where there’s no signal) only to be told the man was halfway back to West Somerset having been timed-out on the job. She was told she’d have to find her own way home.

Imagine that! You’re in your 80s and you’ve got cancer. You’ve travelled 60 miles to a big city; the sort of frightening place you’ve not frequented in years. You’ve had to undergo a small operation that has left you feeling weak. And now you’re out on a loud city pavement in a wheelchair with a hospital porter who is having difficulty in understanding your wonderful old Brendon Hill accent.

Beam me up Scottie!

That is what she’d have cried out in one science fiction scenario. But modern life is veering towards the sort of worrying dystopian science fiction genre in which nightmares become reality. The kind where pandemics rule the roost and where everything has been centralised, so those out on the perimeter of things live in a half-forgotten no-man’s land.

I am pleased to report that the old woman did eventually get home that night, but only thanks to the fact she had the wherewithal to pay for an expensive private taxi, the cost of which in happier times could have flown her to Rome and back.

At this point I could expound upon the case of a loved-one much closer to home, but it would be unfair and perhaps too sensitive because the story is ongoing. Suffice to say that if my recent experience is anything to go by, you need to be very near death indeed, totally helpless and in great pain, before the system kicks in to get your situation sorted.

Perhaps things are different in towns and cities, but if you’re out in the sticks, you could be in trouble in the year 2020.

If you’re very old and suddenly quite infirm but you want to remain as independent as you can and live at home to save the health system money you will be told something like: “Help is difficult to get where you live – it’ll be six weeks before we can get anyone to pop in each day to make sure you’re okay.”

You could, with perfect frankness, reply: “Save your money! I’ll be dead by then.”

There is one alternative. You could ring 999 and be taken to hospital where you’d block a bed for weeks at enormous expense to the overstretched health service.

No individual is to blame for any of this. We all know society is creaking at the seams at every level because of this pandemic. I feel particularly sorry for the young who are having to pay an enormous social and economic price even though they don’t seem to suffer too badly if they get the wretched Covid.

But as I haven’t seen it pronounced anywhere else, I’m going to say it here. If you are old and ill (or perhaps just ill) and you live out in the countryside a long way from the big centres where our support services are concentrated and focussed, you’ve now got a problem.

We are going backwards. In 1920 during the Spanish Flu pandemic, you’d at least have had a village nurse pop round – today someone phones from 30 or 40 miles away saying it’s difficult to get help in your area.

I’ve said it before in this column: will the last person leaving the British countryside please turn off the lights.

You need to be very near death, totally helpless and in great pain to get any help in the country