Let me share this today, a chapter in my work MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN THEY ARE CALLED OUR NHS
GOING
THE EXTRA MILE – That’s what comes naturally to the NHS
I have only been in hospital twice in my life. The first was when I was born, I can’t remember much about that but I am told the hospital was Heathfield Road Hospital in Birmingham. The second time was when I stupidly fell off a ladder and broke three ribs, the hospital on this occasion was University Hospital Milton Keynes or to give it its full title University Amazing Beautiful Loving Hospital Milton Keynes where staff do not treat patients they care for them.
I would not recommend breaking your ribs, it is a big time painful experience. I was on the mend but I did not want to eat anything. I felt too ill to eat but if I did not eat I would not get better and feel well again. You will find the hospital’s catering department listed in the Michelin Guide in the Five Star chapter. But no matter what was put before me I could not eat. The patient in the bed next to me even offered me food his family had brought in but I could not eat a thing.
If I wanted to go home I had to eat. If I did not eat I would not be well enough. All the various vitamin and whatnot levels in my blood were low, I had to eat. Staff tempted me with everything from a cheese sandwich to a plate of chips, from a bowl of fruit and jelly to delicious chocolate ice cream. I was not hungry. I needed to eat in order to get well but I was not well enough to eat, does that make sense ?
Then things changed. The lunch was suddenly appealing and I ate every scrap. Standing behind me the ward sister saw my empty plate. She threw her arms about me and gave me a big hug. Some may say that was unprofessional, I say it was a case of caring for the patient not simply treating the patient. That hug was what I needed. It was a case of going the extra mile. It came naturally. I was discharged from hospital the next day.
Before Milton Keynes had a hospital it was a case of a thirty minute drive, a fast drive to Stoke Manderville Hospital in Aylesbury. I am talking now of late spring 1981, a Sunday evening. My son was learning to walk, to walk holding on to furniture. He slipped and fell, fell onto our family dog who was asleep. The dog reacted instinctively to bite my son. This was not an emergency so no 999 call, no 111 non-emergency number in use back then. The system was to call your local GP where the call would be diverted to a duty doctor. I made such a call.
The call was answered by Senior GP at our surgery Doctor Jarvis. I explained what had happened and asked advice, should I drive my son to Aylesbury ?
“That’s a long drive,” Doctor Jarvis said, “bring our son to my home and I will look at him.”
My
son sat on Doctor Jarvis’s kitchen table where the wound was cleaned and
stitched. Doctor Jarvis went the extra mile by saving my having to drive all
those miles to Aylesbury. He did not treat my son’s bite, he cared for him and
all was well.
When I first came to live in Milton Keynes, when I came to attend teacher training college in 1971 Doctor Peter Jarvis was the college doctor as well as a local GP. Attendance at the college was conditional on Doctor Jarvis becoming my doctor. When I left college I remained on Doctor Jarvis’s books. The surgery was then Whaddon House, today occupying larger premises it is Whaddon Healthcare where I have been a patient for more than fifty years. How fortunate it was that my family received care from my former college doctor.
My daughter was born in 1983 with chronic renal failure. As a child she was in and out of hospital, Guys Hospital in Central London. Whaddon House with Doctors Jarvis, Labrum and Hilmy actively supporting my family alongside the specialist team in London.
My daughter died on 17th May 2017. Having married and moved to Northampton she was obliged to move to a GP surgery near to her home. However, the team at Whaddon still cared for her in the wider sense. When she died Doctor Hilmy telephoned me expressing his sadness and offering support. Doctor Labrum had retired but had staff at the medical centre ask me if he could telephone me. Of course he could. Doctor Labum spoke on the phone for twenty minutes giving his love and care. Doctor Jarvis wrote to me, a very special letter. I saw him at a community event a few weeks later and thanked him for his kind letter. Doctor Jarvis said he was simply doing what a doctor should do to care for someone in such a situation. Forty-six
As an adult my daughter’s hospital treatment was shared between University Hospital Milton Keynes and The Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Late one afternoon attending a clinic appointment at Milton Keynes it was decided she needed to be moved by ambulance to Oxford. This was not a blue light emergency but she did need a medical ambulance, not a transport ambulance. She had to wait until an ambulance was free, that wait was for several hours.
The nurse at Milton Keynes, University Amazing Beautiful Loving Hospital Milton Keynes, caring for her came to the end of her shift but she did not go home. She stayed on duty unpaid until there was an ambulance to take Rebekah to Oxford. She was not treating Beck in the clinic, she was caring for her – caring with love.
The next day I went to the renal clinic at University Amazing Beautiful Loving Hospital Milton Keynes to give this special lady a bunch of flowers and to say Thank You. You did not need to do that, she responded. She did not need to go the extra mile in the way she did, the extra mile that came naturally to her. She went another mile, when it came to Rebekah’s funeral this nurse attended to extend care to her patient and to our family.
GOING
THE EXTRA MILE – That is what comes naturally every day right across our
National Health Service.
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