The Tories are destroying our NHS: Money for bombs but not our pain

At 10.55 am on the 7 October, I went to my local GP’s surgery for blood tests. Mentioning I felt twinges in my chest and a slight pain in my left arm, about 6 members of staff descended into the room in quick succession. Nurses, students, an assistant and a doctor. Blood pressure normal-ish, pulse normal, but the doctor was adamant that I get checked out, in case it was a heart attack. There were too many red flags in his opinion.

I told the doctor I didn’t want to spend hours in the MRI waiting room, with a suspected heart attack and he replied, “I’ll give you a letter, when you show it to the hospital, they will whisk you away.”

I was given 300mg of aspirin.

Little did I know that was the only treatment I would receive all day.

I was sent to A&E without my bloods being done, but was armed with a Doctor’s letter which explained that I’d ‘had an episode in Bradford on Thursday when he collapsed and an ambulance called.’

I was told not to walk or drive to the hospital. I asked for an ambulance, but he said that would take too long.

My wife took me.

The #NHS strikes aren’t just about pay, they are about the future of our Health Service. They are about patients being put at risk daily due to chronic understaffing. They are about kicking the profiteers out. They are about ALL OF US which is why everyone must get behind it.

— Holly (@SocialistHB) October 8, 2022

I was stressed as anyone might be. There were 18 people in the line in front of me to get registered at the cubicle marked: Initial Assessment. I showed my GP’s letter to the security guard, thinking with a suspected heart attack I might be entitled to priority treatment. He said I had to queue, there was no other way.

So I queued. A woman in front of me was in such discomfort that she had to sit down, whilst her partner kept her place in the line.

After dealing with 5 patients, the Initial assessment nurse hurriedly walked past me. I stopped her, gave her the letter and said, “I’m here with a suspected heart attack.”

She looked over the letter and asked: “Have you ever had a heart attack, darling?”

“Not that I know of, love,” I replied.

“You’ll be fine,” she said.

I stood back in the queue reaching the front after half an hour. I was told to go to the A&E’s registration. Another queue…

“There was a time when we used to complain about having to wait for four hours in the A&E,” the woman who had been in front of me said, as I sat down next to her.

“I’ve been here since 7 am this morning,” a middle aged man opposite me said, “not been seen yet.” By now it was 1pm.

“I’ve been here since last night,” a 20ish said. “Not seen a doctor yet.”

An hour or so later, I was seen by a triage nurse took my blood pressure, and said, “We’ll do your ECG and you can go to see a consultant in the clinic.”

“Will I have to wait there as well?” I asked.

“No, due to your potential condition,” he explained putting a hospital wrist band on my arm.

I went back into the waiting room. I waited for an hour or so, then went back to the male nurse and asked when the ECG was likely to be done. He didn’t know.

I had drunk a cup of coffee and a few glasses of water and needed the toilet but didn’t go, in case they called my name whilst I was away. I counted 79 patients in the waiting room.

Eventually the nurse called my name. She told me to strip from the top and lie on the bed. I did, whilst she filled some forms in. When she turned and looked at my chest she said, “I don’t mean no insult like, or to be rude like, but you are so bloomin’ hairy.”

“It’s OK, I’ve heard everything over the years, love,” I replied.

“It might not work, with all that hair,” she said holding some stickers for the ECG nodes. “You have to go, shave and come back.”

“Can’t you just shave the bits where you want to stick these?” I said.

“I don’t have time for that,” she retorted.

“Could I have a razor?” I asked.

“Don’t you have one?” she replied.

“I’m sorry I’m not in a habit of carrying razors waiting for heart attacks,” I replied.

She didn’t have a razor.

“I’ll tell you what? Let me see if I can stick them,” she said, “but it might not work.”

She stopped and asked, “Do you mind if I call someone else into the room.”

I didn’t.

The nurse stuck two nodes at the bottom of my legs, one on each side where there was no hair and then tried to stick the remainder on my chest. Each time she stuck a new one, I could feel the old one peeling off. She thought for a while, and then smiled. She grabbed some tape and tried to hold the nodes down with it.

Each time she put tape on a new node, I could feel the older one peeling off. She thought for a little while and again her face lit up and she stuck more tape on, this time reaching my side. But alas, the same thing happened. She thought again, but didn’t smile this time as she held some of the nodes down with her hands.

She cursed the ECG machine – “it’s not working,” and just as I reminded her that I needed shaving, she let go of me, and said triumphantly, “It worked.”

She didn’t want to hurt me by pulling the nodes off so I ripped the tape off, got dressed and asked, “Is my ECG OK?”

“I don’t read ECGs, I just do ‘em,” she replied.

“Can I have a copy?” I asked.

“Not allowed,” she said.

“Can I take a picture on my mobile?” I asked thinking I could get an opinion from a friend.

“No,” she replied.

“Which way is it to the clinic, where I go and wait for the consultant?”

“Go wait in the waiting room,” she said.

“But the nurse before you said, I had to go to a clinic,” I told her.

“Go wait in the waiting room,” she repeated.

I did, and decided now was my time to go to the toilet. I asked a patient to look after my things and rushed off. The men’s cubical was dirty, with lots of toilet paper on the floor and a can of cider on the toilet seat. I decided to do what I had to and sat down, the seat was broken, and slid under me. What a relief when I got out and there was running water so I could wash my hands.

Back in the waiting room, more patients had come in. A woman cried in pain. Another was clearly distressed and hyperventilating. One patient was crying. A man in his 50s shouted, “If I don’t see a doctor now, I am getting a taxi home and am going to hang myself.”

There was a ripple of sympathy for the man among the patients. One shouted, “Is there a social worker who can help him?” Apart from patients no one else heard and the man waited a while and left.

“They got money for bombs for Ukraine, but nothing for our pain,” a patient protested loudly.

“Innit,: I concurred, as did others.

I went to the receptionist and explained that I had been told by a nurse that I would go to a clinic to see the consultant after the ECG. She told me to see the nurse again. I told her it appeared he had left his shift. She shrugged her shoulders and I sat down. It was now 5 pm.

A man’s voice announced over the PA system, “We have 140 patients already in the A&E and 80 in the waiting room. Everyone in the waiting room has at least an 8 hour wait as things stand, and this is likely to get longer as time goes on. If you are going to leave, please inform, us.”

The woman next to me looked at me, defeat written all over her face, and said, “They just want us to leave, just go away. I can’t take it anymore. I’m going home to call an ambulance.”

She tried to get up, but couldn’t. Her partner pulled her, she still couldn’t get up, so I helped her up. She thanked me and hobbled out of the hospital.

I waited for another 30 mins or so, and then saw a man dressed in smart expensive clothes. He was the only one not wearing a mask. I concluded he must be a manager, and went up to him and said: “Who do I inform I am leaving?”

“You can tell me,” he said.

I put my arm forward showed him the hospital’s wrist band and said, “Would you like take a photo of this, it has all my details.”

“I just need your hospital number,” he said writing it down on a scrap piece of paper, and asked me, “What are you here for?”

“Suspected heart attack,” I replied. He pursed his lips.

“Do I have to wait for another 8 hours, even after I have had an ECG?” I asked.

“Yes, everyone in the waiting room means everyone,” he said.

“If I stay here, sitting on those,” I said pointing to the metal chairs in the waiting room, ‘for 8 or more hours, I’m going to have a heart attack.’

“So, are you leaving then?” he asked.

“I reckon, God is likely to give me more help than you have in the MRI.”

I felt defeated and humiliated and walked out of the A&E, past the in-coming line of patients, who now stretched outside the building and stood in the drizzle of Mancunium rain.

I leaned against a wall to rest, and wondered, if I was having a heart attack the bells would have tolled for me by now.

I went home, had a hot bath, and realised, I had been so stressed in hospital, I had forgotten to take off the blue nodes from the bottom of my legs.

Tariq Mehmood is an award-winning novelist and filmmaker. He was one of the leading defendants in the case of the Bradford 12 in 1981. He co-directed Injustice, the ground-breaking film into deaths in British Police Custody and writer of its follow-on, Ultraviolence. He is currently making a film on the Bradford 12. He wrote his first novel awaiting trial: Hand On The Sun, Penguin 1983. He has since written a number of novels, the latest being You’re Not here, Daraja 2018. He is an Associate Professor at the American University Of Beirut, Lebanon.

Follow him on Twitter: @TariqMehmood000

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