‘Travelling to other parts of the world brings it home just how privileged we are and how we take the NHS for granted’
THE call came at 4am, as emergency calls tend to. My daughter, working on a student summer visa in the USA, had a bad cough (which turned out to be bronchitis) and wanted to know how to get a doctor’s appointment or what hospital to go to in the USA.
“How ill are you?,” I asked, snapping awake immediately.
It turned out, after she navigated her way to a pricey clinic via a workmate, that she had bronchitis and needed antibiotics.
We thought we’d covered everything before she left, she had insurance and had the required health check for her visa – but we’d forgotten what a safety net the NHS is, and how we take it for granted.
In a country without one she wasn’t sure where to get help or how to negotiate the cost – was one doctor cheaper than another for a sinister reason?
Her timing was impeccable. As the NHS marks its 70 birthday, it was a reminder of how lucky we are to have one.
As a person and as a parent it takes a massive weight off your mind to know that you can literally walk into an accident and emergency department or GP surgery in any town or city and get the help you need without paying more than your taxes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in the case of hospitals.
Travelling to other parts of the world brings it home just how privileged we are and how we take the NHS for granted.
Sure, it’s a massive beast of a machine which is bound to get things wrong, as vast organisations are bound to do, but, when push comes to shove in my experience, it has always delivered.
There was the time just after 5pm on a Friday when a GP saw me at the drop of a hat when I came through the door with what turned out to be agonising pain from appendicitis; the time when I was rushed into hospital on a drip when I got blood poisoning after giving birth; and the time when, aged five, I got a splinter of metal in my eye ball and a doctor very gently eased it out with a miniature plunger.
All this emergency care was given with calm swiftness, for which I’m eternally grateful, as in each case I was panicking.
My panic was even worse on the occasions I had to take my children to accident and emergency.
These visits included a broken foot bone, a cracked chin, torn ligaments, deep cuts needing stitches, and croup – a ghastly allergic cough which can be life-threatening.
We returned so often for this reason with them when they were babies that one of them ended up on a croup research survey.
I remember the night in a chair beside a bed on a ward with my then six-month-old son, while he was being treated for croup. I was woken by the play team who came round to play with the sick children. He enjoyed it so much he didn’t want to leave.
Perhaps the worst experience, and the one I am most grateful for help from the NHS for, was when the same son badly burned his hand aged three one Christmas Eve.
Racing to the accident and emergency at the University Hospital of Wales at 8pm through festive traffic, I knew it would be busy, but nothing prepared me for the mayhem.
It seemed the entire city of Cardiff had chosen this night to get ill, have accidents or drink so much they had injured themselves.
A junior doctor whisked us through to paediatric accident and emergency and admitted he wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he would get a senior colleague.
Within 15 minutes me, my elderly mother and son, were in an ambulance and on our way to Morriston Hospital.
I’ll be forever grateful to the lovely paramedic who sat in the back chatting to us keeping the situation calm.
At Morriston there were nurses at the door to meet us.
While we were there a patient was being flown in from France to get emergency expert burns treatment which that hospital provides.
Thirteen years on my son can barely recall the incident, and has happily made a full recovery.
Looking back on all this, I wonder if it would all have been so smooth, swift and reassuringly easy to get treatment without the NHS.
Lying in a ward at UHW recovering after having my appendix out, I trawled the internet to find out more about it.
Chat rooms were full of people in the USA discussing the cost of their surgery and debating whether it was best to leave hospital before they felt ready because that would be cheaper.
At times of illness and injury noone wants to be fretting over whether they can afford the care they need, and no-one should have to worry about whether they can afford medical insurance.
Theresa May has just indicated we will be paying more tax for the NHS.
Paying more tax is always going to be controversial.
I am sure there are areas where the NHS could save cash, and areas where it could be more efficient.
Tough choices will have to be debated and decisions made. If the outpouring of feeling and praise for the NHS during its 70th anniversary is anything to go by it will be hard to see the public accepting its demise, whatever the doom-mongers say.
Only two things are certain, death and taxes, as the saying goes.
That death will come more swiftly unless we pay a little more for the medics who can ward it off.