Abandoned by my GP

We ALL clapped for the NHS during the covid crisis to show our support for the doctors and nurses on the front line, putting their lives at risk to save patients.

While they deserved all the thanks we could give, the rest of the NHS has behaved very differently throughout the pandemic.

When lockdown was announced, our local surgery, like most others, shut down immediately and has remained closed for the past five months.

Phone calls are answered only between 11am and 4 pm and the only doctors’ appointments available are by telephone. Some conditions can’t be diagnosed this way, leaving patients feeling they have been abandoned by their GP.

Hospitals are little better. Many consultants are not taking on new patients, even privately, as i discovered when i tried in desperation to get my wife an appointment with a hearing specialist.

the Government is urging people back to work. it is possible to get a haircut, go to the pub, have a meal out, book an appointment with an optician or a dentist, but we can’t see a doctor.

if an optician can get up close and personal in full PPE, while the patient wears a mask, why can’t the same happen in a GP’s consulting room?

could patients have a covid test before their appointment to make sure they aren’t infected?

Where is this reluctance to get doctors back to working normally coming from: is it the unions, the NHS or the doctors themselves?

it’s time for action before thousands die from conditions that are not being diagnosed. the NHS is failing us and it’s a national disgrace.

RICHARD GRAHAM, Huddersfield, W. Yorks.