editorialgirl

I needed to see my doctor this morning. I might as well have tried to make an appointment with the Queen.

I’m not the sort of person that sees their doctor all the time. I hate making a fuss and I only go when I really have to, so I don’t have much experience of the system. All I know is that it is crap.

In fact, I managed to avoid doctors altogether for a long time. Then, about three years ago, when I finally decided I couldn’t leave it any longer, I joined my local practice.

I worked out their system quite quickly. You called the number bang on 08.30, got an engaged tone, hit redial for half an hour and then eventually got through to someone who told you all the appointments had gone and to call back tomorrow. More often than not, I got so frustrated with this that I didn’t bother calling back and carried on suffering in silence, which I guess was all part of their plan.

Later I got the hang of it and asked for an emergency appointment every time. This meant sitting in the waiting room all afternoon waiting for them to deign to let me see someone, but at least I got to see someone. And the doctors were all quite nice, which I think is important.

So this time, I was all prepared.

From my office phone, I called the surgery number bang on 08.30 and hit redial until I got through at about 08.50. All normal so far. I asked if there was any chance of an appointment.

“We don’t do appointments any more,” the ever-so-slightly patronising voice said.

Okaay.

“We take your number and someone calls you back.”

Right. (Calls me back? How’s this going to work?)

“What’s your number?”

I gave them my mobile number.

“And can I take down an outline of the problem?”

Well no, you can’t actually, because you’re a receptionist and I’m in an office full of people. As if I didn’t feel uncomfortable enough already, wasting all this time on a personal phonecall.

So that was that and some time later a doctor called me back. It turns out that the way it works now is that you have to tell the doctor what’s wrong over the phone (I had to leave the office, obviously, and ended up sitting in the ladies, whispering symptoms into my mobile). Then they diagnose you – remotely – and if a prescription is required (and in this case I knew it would be, which just makes it all the more frustrating) they print it out while you’re on the phone, then you go in and pick it up.

You know what? This sucks.

Firstly, I’ve spent work time toing and froing on the phone trying to get through at “the special time”, when I could have just booked an appointment the afternoon before, then gone into the surgery, said “I’ve got (illness X)” and got the prescription. Surely this is as much a waste of their time as it is a waste of mine?

Secondly, even if I didn’t know what I’d got, and it turned out I didn’t need a prescription, I’d rather speak to the doctor in private, face to face. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like whispering in public toilets.

Thirdly, I could have said “while I’m here, can you have a look at my hand? I think I’ve got an RSI from pressing redial so many times”. But I suppose that makes me exactly the sort of person they’re trying to avoid.

Spring is finally here and so I’m out of hibernation, out taking pictures of springy things again.

I grew up on Swanshurst Lane so obviously I’ve spent a lot of time in Swanshurst Park over the years. It was never the most interesting of Birmingham’s parks to a non-fisherman like myself, being made up of mostly water and playing field, but at the moment it’s looking like I’ve never seen it before. They’ve drained the lake.

This picture shows the empty pool about a week after it was drained; unfortunately I missed getting a picture of the rusting Metro they found in the bottom. Nice.

So what’s going on? Apparently the council is repairing a dam (sluice). Fair enough, but the big question round these parts has been: what did they do with all the fish?

According to local anglers, the idea had been to net them and sell them off, then to restock the pool with “small fry”, which, as you might imagine, the anglers were not best pleased about anyway. But before this could happen, a Birmingham Mail article reports, the plug was pulled rather earlier than planned, leaving hundreds of carp and other fish (and eels) flapping around for their lives. A rescue mission had to be launched by anglers and other passing visitors, but it was too late for many of the fish – many of which have been around nearly as long as I have. A real shame.