For
my book I LOVE OUR NHS – David’s story, yesterday I was working on a day by day
account of the pandemic during the year 2020. Of course we all lived through
those terrible times but even so soon after it is toon easy to forget what
happened.
IF
IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR OUR NHS YOU MAY NOT BE HERE TO READ THIS POST AND I MAY NOT
BE HERE TO WRITE IT.
I
began the book expecting it to end up around 75,000 words. At the end of
yesterday it reached 91,636 and will finish somewhere in excess of 100,000. SO
MANY WORDS ARE NEEDED TO RECORD MY LOVE FOR OUR NHS.
Other and Covid Booster. Jab – Jab – Jab – Jab – Jab - Jab ! I am surprised
that nobody has invented a robot vaccinator. No, not a good idea.
My
love of our National Health Service emanates from the life of my daughter
Rebekah. I can never thank her for introducing me to such love and I will never
stop shouting my mouth off about the NHS and my love for everyone involved within
it. Although Beck would say Oh Dad do stop
it I will always give her the credit for planting the acorn of love into
which my present-day oak tree has grown.
Rebekah
was always known as Little Miss Sunshine, no matter how poorly she was at any
time I defy anyone to find a photograph of her anywhere that does not show her
smiling. Beck’s SMILE was very cheeky and highly infectious. Doctor Hilmy, our
family GP described her as A Smiling Angel.
Shortly
after her passing I produced a SMILE card with these words:
You
there,
the
one reading this now
I want
you to do something
SMILE
Smile
because you’re beautiful
because
you’re amazing
because
you’re unique
because
you can
because
tomorrow is a new day
because
no matter what you think
someone
loves you
SMILE
because you deserve to
Around
this book orbit a number of different projects where this SMILE card is at the
centre. Across the year of this book’s publication, 2022, I anticipate
something like twenty-five thousand SMILE cards will be personalised by different
people and given to people who need a vaccination for sadness.
Let
me now share a beautiful poem by Spike Milligan.
Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu, When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too. I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin. When he smiled I realised I'd passed it on to him. I thought about that smile, then I realised its worth. A single smile, just like mine could travel round the earth. So, if you feel a smile begin, don't leave it undetected. Let's start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected !
To
the genius of Spike Milligan I have added a few words of my own.
There is not a medic anywhere who could stop this infection, there is
not a medic anywhere in the world who would want to stop it.
SMILE AT THE WORLD AND THE WORLD WILL SMILE BACK AT YOU
Special
?Comedian Spike Milligan made so many
people SMILE and has given us that poem to use as a vaccination for sadness.
Spike
took his humour with him to the grave – literally. On his grave are the words:
I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL
In
the third decade of the twenty-first century the evil of the pandemic not only
made people physically ill but caused an epidemic of sadness. I could never
write a poem like Spike but I did coin these words:
A
SMILE IS THE VACCINATION FOR SADNESS
As
our NHS has gone the extra mile 25/8/366 across the pandemic front-line workers
have cared for their patients with such a vaccination. As you read these words
may I urge you to go out and vaccinate everyone you meet today. Reach out and
vaccinate our NHS with your SMILE of love.
Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu, When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too. I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin. When he smiled I realised I'd passed it on to him. I thought about that smile, then I realised its worth. A single smile, just like mine could travel round the earth. So, if you feel a smile begin, don't leave it undetected. Let's start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected !
So
could one day a scientist invent a vaccination machine ?DON’T
BE STUPID a robot can not SMILE !
Can
you speak doggie ? And can your do speak English ?Jake and I do !We have a unique communications system within
which each knows exactly what the other is saying.
THANK
YOU to all who have been following my daily share of DRAFT chapters in my book
I LOVE OUR NHS – David’s Story. Today I am going to explain how JAKE looks
after me and is my own medical detection dog.
Before
having this page over to Jake can I ask if you love our NHS or not ?If the answer is YES the please join this
facebook group.
I
am ill. No I do not have covid but I am seriously ill. (Well I was ill when I
wrote the initial draft for this chapter but I am better now.) My illness is not life-threatening although it
is life changing. My illness is not contagious and is centred around my
lifestyle. As I explained at the beginning of this book, I am receiving medical
help but feel ever so guilty as I should rightly come way, way, way down the
list of NHS priorities. I am NOT looking for sympathy but I AM looking for
support, not for me but for our National Health Service. I am going to use my
illness to generate that support. That is what this book is all about, my
sharing anecdotes of love and thanking the beautiful people within our NHS.
I
have vitamin deficiency which is causing mental distress and anxiety. Right now
it is at the centre of my life and I need to move it to the side line. On
Wednesday 1st December I had a routine blood test at my GP’s
surgery. I was subsequently contacted and given a nurse appointment as there
was something wrong with the results. That appointment was for Thursday 16th
December 2021. However, due to government impositions such routine
appointments, mine included, were cancelled.
A
few days later I telephoned the surgery to ask what the abnormality within the
result was. It took me nearly half an hour to get through to someone in order
to chat about that result, so many people were calling the surgery. The lady I
spoke to was herself clearly seriously stressed, I did my best to be kind and
understanding although the long wait had been frustrating. Overall it was a
good phone call where I learned that the blood sample showed I was B-12
deficient. What did that mean ? The lady
at the other end of the phone line explained I needed a face to face
appointment but all available slots were booked until 17th January
so would I please call again in the New Year.
I
went to the government website to find out what being B-12 deficient meant. As
I read the symptoms I became more and more frightened as I recognised them in
myself. I was not frightened because I was ill, an illness I had put down to
inactivity and frustration living in a covid society, I was frightened because
on 20th January 2021 I was due to donate blood, this was scheduled
to be my thirty-fourth donation. I came to being a blood donor late in life,
that is another story, it is a cause I am passionate about. I have/had an
ambition to live long enough to donate fifty pints of blood. With this illness
I fear I will not be able to donate next month. Will I be able to resume
donation when I am on medication ? I do
not know. What I do know, what I have decided today – Tuesday 28th
December 2021 is that I am going to use my being ill to support or National Health Service.
Five
hundred and twenty-five words there in four paragraphs explaining how I got to
where I am right now. Wind the clock back for about a year and my own personal
medical detection dog Jake diagnosed I was ill then did his level best both to tell
me and to care for me.
Jake
The Dog, Jake The Dog, there’s no one quite like Jake The Dog ! Jake came to
live with my wife Maureen and I eight years ago, he is the boss and at the
centre of our home. We would have it no other way.
Adopt Jake, Adopt Jake. Week
after week after week my daughter Rebekah pestered us to adopt a dog she had
found at a local rescue centre. She and her husband had recently adopted Lucy
and she was determined we would give Jake his forever home. I don’t want a dog ! I persistently explained as she persistently
insisted we adopt Jake. She would bring picture after picture after picture on
her phone, week in week out as she demanded Adopt
Jake, Adopt Jake !
Finally,
one Sunday Maureen gave in and we went to the rescue centre to check out Jake.
I still did not want to adopt a dog ! Maureen was ahead of me as we went into
the kennel, Jake picked up a toy and ran to the cage bars to say hello. From
that moment on we were definitely going to adopt Jake.
We
waited in line at the reception, when our turn came the required paperwork was
completed. We would pick Jake up on 1st October after a few checks
and training sessions had been completed. Turning to leave we heard the couple
behind us ask if they could meet Jake. After weeks and weeks and weeks of
nobody wanting Jake, had we been just a few minutes later we would not have
adopted our now so much loved friend.
Destiny knew what she was about did she not ?
Jake
knew I was ill. He started to follow me everywhere I went about the house. If I
took a bath he would sit outside the bathroom door. If I took an afternoon nap
he would lay on the bed with me. Still today if I leave the room, even for a
few moments, he will follow me. If I go out of the room and close the door so
Jake can not follow me he will sit on my chair until I come back. He knew I was
ill, he detected the fact that I was suffering.
Lucy
Dog came to stay with us for a couple of days a few weeks ago. Lucy and Jake
are great friends. Lucy was ill and we had to take her to the vet. Throughout
her stay Jake fussed round her, carling and lovingly doing what he could to
help her recover.
At
the age of seventy-one years I have only been in hospital twice. Once was when
I was born and once when I stupidly fell off a ladder and broke three ribs.
Jake had not been with us for long when that happened but he remembers it so
clearly. If I stand on a chair to reach up for something, or if I get out a
step ladder he barks like crazy telling me not to do it. On one occasion as I
stood on a chair he reached up, grabbed my leg in his mouth and tried to pull
me down !
The
day my daughter Rebekah died her husband was in our home. Jake sat on his feet
and pressed his body against Gary’s legs. He knew what had happened. He knew
that the lady who had persuaded her Mum and Dad to give him his forever home
had passed on. He knew that Gary needed love and support. He was going to give
that support
Jake
The Dog. Jake The Dog. There’s no one quite like Jake The Dog.
Orbiting
around our National Health Service we have charities of Medical Detection Dogs,
Hearing Dogs for the Deaf and Seeing Dogs for the Blind. Dogs have senses we
mere humans can not begin to comprehend. Love comes natural to a dog. Dogs are
special, Jake is special; he is my on personal medical detection dog an
therapist. Where would our NHS be without the love and support of assistance
dogs ?
Below
is something I shared on Facebook. ONLY ONE PERSON JOINED.
Do love or do you
not love our NHS ?
HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE OUR NHS ? In 2019 I
was setting up two projects with the then chair of MK Hospital. However, the
pandemic ended both. I set up this Facebook Group; https://www.facebook.com/groups/424858988388705/
to promote both but never invited anyone to join. I am thinking rather than
continue to let it be dormant we could use it to show LOVE & SUPPORT to our
local NHS, to promote supporting charities and such activities as blood
donation. IF YOU LOVE OUR NHS WOULD YOU JOIN ?
So
here is today’s chapter.
On
13th May 2020, a few days short of the third anniversary of her
death, I published on Amazon my book Our Rebekah A Love Story From Our NHS. I
have been a strong and I hope vocal supporter of our National Health Service
since Beck was a small child. This second book now shares in great detail my
love and the debt my family owes to the NHS, a debt we can never, ever hope to
repay.
Now
the overdraft of that debt has been significantly increased. I am ill. I am not
looking for sympathy in so saying but I am hoping Rebekah’s story and my own
story may bring others to the level of love to which I aspire.
A
few years ago I became a vegetarian. It was not a conscious decision, I drifted
into it but now I am passionate and would rather have the flesh torn from my
bones and fed to a crocodile than eat even a packet of meat flavoured crisps. I
will eat eggs and milk in cooked products but not on their own so with that
exception I am in fact Vegan. At the end of 2021 this dramatic change in diet
saw me being diagnosed as vitamin deficient, the chemical equilibrium in my
body was out of balance. I received, as I will later explain, beautiful care
and treatment but now I guess I have some kind of eating disorder where food is
a punishment and not something to be enjoyed.
The
body can go chemically out of balance and so can the mind. Writing as I am now
in early April 2022 I have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness.
Call it anxiety, call it depression the fact is I am going through some kind of
minor mental breakdown. It is like I am in a long dark tunnel, I know there is
a world on either side of me but I am frightened of it coming through the walls
of the tunnel. There is, I assume, a light at the end of the burrow but my
tunnel twists and turns so with light not being able to see round corners I do
not see an end to my present situation.
I
am on medication but it is not working. I had a meeting with a truly lovely,
wonderful doctor at my GP surgery, well aren’t all doctors truly lovely and
wonderful, who asked me a series of questions to give the diagnosis.
As
someone who has always been very active, pre-pandemic I was working an average
of sixty hours a week with voluntary projects, now I really do not want and do
not feel able to do anything. Working with vulnerable people I used to say that
everyone suffered mental illness to some degree or other. Now I understand what
a ridiculous off the cuff and empty remark that was.
My
mother-in-law suffered severely from Alzheimer’s Disease. Before she died she looked
me in the eye and said, “I am frightened.”
Behind the dark cloak of her exterior she was there and desperately
trying to look out through the fog. That is how I am feeling right now.
More than time for me to explain in writing
these words I AM NOT LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY !
I
came up with the idea to write this book as a sequel to Our Rebekah A Love
Story From Our NHS many moths ago. Within my thinking it went through a variety
of genre changes until I finally decided I was not well enough to undertake the
work. More than twenty-eight thousand preliminary notes were going to be thrown
away and forgotten. However, the night before I am typing this rather feeble
introduction I had a dream which told me I should write the book and write it
as a form of therapy to straighten out my tunnel then I could aim for the light
at the end.
Do
you believe in god ? I don’t but I do
believe in a force incomprehensible to any human mind which I call Destiny,
Madam Destiny. Last week my family doctor retired, he is a lovely special
person who has served my family, in particular Rebekah, for many years. I sent
him a retirement gift. Today I received a truly lovely card and letter from
him. Thank You Doctor Hilmy, Thank You Madam Destiny for bringing me to the
point where I am not abandoning this project but lifting it up to celebrate our
NHS.
When
Our Rebekah was published we were in the early stages of the evil pandemic
imported by the whole world from China. People were singing praises for the
NHS, clapping on their doorsteps and putting up notices. Here today and gone
tomorrow praise ! With the pandemic far
from over no matter what any politician may tell you it is still here and
people are passing away every day, families are suffering and to my way of
thinking not receiving the love and support society should be wrapping around
them. I believe that my book was the biggest celebration in 2020 for our
National Health Service but I could not get the media to take it and use it to
show love for the wonderful people behind those three letters N, H &
S. While our local newspaper did give
its support the BBC and all orbiting around it picked out media puppets which I
would suggest were not representative of the stories and love I was trying to
share.
Will
this sequel be received in a brighter light ? I would like to hope so. If that
light guides me to the end of my tunnel then I will be happy. If that light
leads just one single person to genuinely invest love to the amazing, beautiful
people who work within our National Health Service than I will be happy.
Another
DRAFT chapter in my book I LOVE OUR NHS – David’s story.
If
you and old boy (girl) like me this may be a trip down memory lane. If you are
fortunate to be of our younger generation please step into the time machine.
As a kid it was good news to be ill !Being ill meant officially skiving off
school, in my day nobody liked school. (Not even the teachers I strongly suspect
!) Today we call these childhood illness but way back then it was just a case
of being poorly and poorly meant time off school. Yippie ! Today we have the
MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccination but in the 1950’s and early 1960’s
medical attitude was catch these illnesses as early as possible and get them out
of the way. Immunity would then protect you from them in later life.
Some diseases were a passport to a couple of weeks
off school while some were feared and a passport to disability and even
death.We kids encouraged the former but
tried not to think of the latter.
As I invite you to meander with me again down memory
lane I have brainstormed nine illnesses all kinds of sickness my generation was
familiar with. Today through the love of our NHS they are an enigma.
I spoke about Measles in an earlier chapter so we
will start with Chickenpox. I am a prolific writer, I am NOT a medic so these
memories are from a layman supported by the odd Google search !
Chickenpox. No this was not contracted from chickens
or even from their eggs. I think I was about ten years of age when the pox laid
its eggs on my skin. They began as a rash on my face, arms and stomach. Great,
three weeks off school. As the rash turned into pimples those pimples started
to itch. The standard remedy was to paint a pink liquid called calamine lotion
onto each spot. I think I am remembering correctly when I say this was done by
dipping a small paint brush into the bottle then dabbing it on surface of each
spot.The spots would move to the next
stage having a scab on their tops. It was strictly forbidden but I can assure
you there was not a single kid who did not pick the tops off those scarring
pimples and keep them by their bedside as a trophy of illness.
Today in
the UK the chickenpox vaccine is
not currently part of the routine childhood immunisation but the disease is
nowhere near as common as it was sixty years ago when I was a kid. I bet the
kids of today are a bit better behaved than we were and do not pick their
spots. Yeh, we all wanted chicken pox and the time off school it granted to we
kids.
My Nan suffered from
Shingles which is an adult variant of Chickenpox. Shingles is caused when the chickenpox virus is reactivated. After a person has had
chickenpox, the virus lies dormant in certain nerves for many years. Shingles
is more common in people with weakened immune systems and in people over the
age of fifty. I am well over the age of fifty (Unfortunately) but Shingles I
will not be getting. Free on the NHS my doctor has vaccinated me against it.
Mumps. I did indeed
contract mumps and no doubt it was the celebrated Doctor Reeves who diagnosed
my condition and sped me back to health but, try as I have, Iam unable to pull into my mind any clear
recollection. My mother told me there were such things as mumps parties where infected
children spent time with friends so passing on the disease and getting it over
and done with.
I would emphasise
that this is a trip down memory lane with such memories being personal, after
sixty (Sorry I keep going on about me age don’t I !) or so years while the
memories exist I can not rule out my wearing rose tinted glasses or in the case
of the next disease dark glasses.
Scarlet Fever. Doing
a little bit of on-line research I found this statement. Although
scarlet fever was once considered a serious childhood illness, antibiotic treatments have made it less
threatening. Still, if left untreated, scarlet fever can result in more-serious
conditions that affect the heart, kidneys and other parts of the body.
This was one disease
a kid in my generation did not want to catch even if it meant not having any
time off school ! Quoting from above:
Scarlet Fever was once considered a serious childhood illness. You bet it
was !If you caught this illness your
bedding had to be taken out into the garden and burned. I can not remember it
happening to anyone I knew but that was the legend we little kids knew and
feared.
Travelling to
Birmingham city centre on the ‘bus I clearly remember passing Witton Isolation
Hospital. That was a place of fear, a hospital which as we kinds understood
admitted more patients than it discharged.
Wikipedia, the font
of all knowledge, enhances our journey down memory lane.
Built in 1894 Witton Isolation Hospital was initially in a
semi-rural district but by the 1930’s the site was surrounded by the newly
built Kingstanding and Perry Commonhousing developments.
Witton Isolation Hospital was used sporadically during the
twentieth century including the outbreak of smallpox that occurred in the city
in 1962. The last cases quarantined there were during January and February 1966
following an outbreak that originated at the University of Birmingham Medical
School. Witton Isolation Hospital was eventually superseded by the UK's
first National Isolation Hospital established in 1966. On 4thMay 1966 the last patient was discharged.
Smallpox. That memory
above, vague as perhaps it is, brings me to share something vivid, Birmingham’s
outbreak of smallpox !
When smallpox broke
out in Birmingham there was a degree of panic. I write these words during the
Covid Pandemic which is far, far more serious in 2022 than that smallpox
outbreak of sixty years ago. In 2022 we have not seen panic but in 1962 we did,
it was everywhere – panic I mean. Families lined up for hundreds of yards
outside their doctor’s surgery to be given a vaccination. These were not as
well organised as we have experienced in covid, they were chaotic. Made chaotic
through panic within the community.
It was Edward Jenner,
a doctor living in Gloucestershire, who noticed women working with cows
developed cowpox which was a mild infection. Those who had contracted cowpox
did not catch smallpox. 1n 1796 he performed the world’s first vaccination
injecting patients with cowpox.
As school the deputy
headmaster, Mr Sullivan, went from class to class telling children about Edward
Jenner and calming their panic.
The last person to
die of smallpox in the UK passed away in 1978.
We call it Rubella
today and all are routinely vaccinated against the illness. Back in my
childhood it was called German Measles. Although I was not born until 1950 war
with Germany was a recent memory for the older generations. There was a certain
derision calling this disease German Measles but I never caught it and am not
aware of any children around me who did.
Polio, however, was
something all children knew of and all children feared. Poliomyelitis, we all called it polio, affected
the central nervous system causing paralysis. I knew of one girl who lost the
use of her legs from the disease and was confined to a wheel chair. If the
paralysis hit the lungs the muscles did not work meaning the patient was unable
to breathe and would quickly die. Patients could be paced in a pressure
chamber, an iron lung, which pressed down then released that pressure on the
chest forcing the lungs to inhale and exhale. We kids all feared our lives
ending with our being inside an iron lung.
I was a teacher. I can see him now, his dark wavy
teenage hair sitting at a desk on the back row of my English class. It was
Friday afternoon, the last lesson of the day. The following week his form tutor
produced a cassette tape recorded into which his classmates spoke messages of
hope which would be played to him while he lay unconscious in hospital. He did
not wake up. A week later I stood with the headmaster and a group of pupils as
his funeral passed the school. Meningitis.
Another student contracted the disease but he
recovered which was a blessing.
As a child I knew of this illness but never thought
it would find me. There was a boy of my age who had contracted it and only
recovered in part. He was left with a series of disabilities and walked with
callipers on his legs. It left him with brain damage and learning disabilities.
His father was a doctor who worked with Doctor Reeves. The horror of meningitis
did not discriminate.
In her childhood my mother’s sister died from meningitis.
Cases in 2020 were uncommon. Looking at the
government statistics no person in the age range of my student contracted the
illness and nobody died from the illness during 2020.
Whooping Cough. Everyone in my generation had
heard of whooping cough but none of us knew what it was. All these years later
I still do not know what it is. Do you my readers know what it is ?
Whooping cough,
apparently, is very serious
especially for babies and young kids. Whooping cough can cause pneumonia,
seizures, brain damage and death. Babies younger than one year of age who get
whooping cough may be hospitalised and may die.
How common is whooping cough in UK ?
Whooping cough used to be very common in the UK. But
since vaccinations against the disease were introduced in the 1950’s the number
of people getting it each year has been much lower. Although it's still less
common than it used to be, cases of whooping cough have increased over the last
few years.
And finally in this trip down memory lane - Rabies
! Human rabies is extremely rare in the UK. The last case of classical rabies
acquired in this country was more than a century ago in 1902. Cases occurring
since then have all been acquired abroad, usually through dog bites. Since
1946 twenty-six cases have
been reported in the United Kingdom, all imported. It is strange then how in
the 1950’s we lads feared the illness and, as crazy as this may sound, we
feared it with a smile. Humans contract it from infected dogs. While common in
the US with Britain being an island the disease was not to be found in the dog
population. The fear was that pet smuggling would spread it across the English
Channel. Nobody wanted to catch rabies as the injections were given in the
belly. Owch !
And with that I will bring this wander down
memory lane to an end.
Doctor,
doctor !I think I am a bell ! Go home and take these pills. If you’re
not better soon give me a ring.
Doctor,
doctor ! I think I'm a dog. Okay, have a
seat. I can't, I'm not allowed on the
furniture !
Doctor,
doctor ! I've got broccoli stuck in my ear !Looks like you're
not eating properly.
THANK YOU to all who are
reading my DRAFT chapters for my current writing project I LOVE OUR NHS – DAVID’S
STORY. If you have missed any you can check them now:
Today I would like to share
something I originally wrote in the early 1990’s A LADY WITH A SPECIAL MISSION.
This is actually something I
wrote in 1993 for my book Not The Concrete Cows. Now, almost thirty years
later, is this text out of date ? In some parts it perhaps is but when it comes
to LOVE it is one hundred percent bang up to date !
My own daughter has suffered
from renal failure since she was three years old and so my
interest in the
donor card programme is deeply personal. After a third attempt at a kidney
transplant in London’s Guys Hospital I was offered an interview with Mrs
Elizabeth Ward, president of the British Kidney Patients Association, in order
to prepare a feature for national magazine.
By her own admission Mrs Ward
is a formidable lady and so I have to admit to a certain sense of apprehension
as I prepared for our meeting. When the brief meeting was over my whole being
resounded with shell shock- rather than my interviewing her, Mrs Ward had
clearly interviewed me and I'm not sure if I passed the test ! However, it was that strong personality which
was directly responsible for the introduction of our familiar donor card.
Outwardly Nigel and Elizabeth
Ward have everything in the world: a lovely house overlooking rolling countryside,
a successful business, holidays abroad, a full social life and three wonderful
children. It was as their son Timothy, affectionately known as Timbo, was about
to enter Harrow School that the family had to cope with the devastating news he
was suffering from a life threatening kidney disorder.
As one who has had to accept
the same reality, I can empathise with Timbo’s parents but in 1994 medical
science has come a very long way from when the Ward Family had to cope with the
situation. Then funding for renal dialysis provided but a few machines and organ
transplantation was in its infancy. It looked as if Timbo did not have a very
long life ahead of him.
Timbo attended school with the
son of Sir Keith Joseph, then Minister of Health. When Elizabeth was sent a
kidney donor card in use in the United States she began campaigning for a
similar system to be introduced in Great Britain. She wrote many times to Sir Keith,
at first suggesting, then urging and finally bullying him towards the
introduction of a kidney donor card.
The first renal transplants had
been performed in Boston, Massachusetts, as far back as 1954. Ten years later
the first operation was attempted in this country. But without a supply of
organs there was little future in transplant surgery.
In 1967 world attention
unfortunately focused on South Africa where Christian Barnard performed the
first human heart transplant on a 54 year old patient. The surrounding media
circus, failure rate and questioning of the ethics involved in such programmes
did little to prepare public opinion for transplant donor card.
There were those who found the
idea of spare part surgery repulsive, almost akin to cannibalism, while others
feared the removal of organs before the donor was honestly dead. Ignorance and
prejudice ruled over medical science.
Eventually Sir Keith Joseph
agreed to discuss Mrs Ward’s proposals and a card based on her own design was
launched in 1971 as the kidney donor card. I remember the one I carried from
the early 1970’s, I must still have it somewhere, having to ask my father, as
next of kin as I was not yet married, to sign his agreement on it. Like many
relatives of the time he was reluctant to agree. For others the reluctance
became outright refusal.
A change of government saw
Barbara Castle and Doctor David Owen at the Department of Health. The
redoubtable Mrs Ward confronted them and the realisation that her husband could
refuse legal permission for her to become a donor appalled Mrs Castle
suffragette instincts. She demanded the condition be removed.
The next twenty years saw not
only transplants being accepted as by far the best treatment for chronic renal
failure but also the successful grafting of hearts, liver, cornea and more
recently the spleen. To meet the widening of science health minister Doctor
Gerard Vaughn oversaw the kidney donor card’s transformation into the organ
donor card.
But this was a change the
campaigning Mrs Ward did not exactly welcome. “The indelicate wording of the
card makes it look like a butcher shopping list !” She complained to me in the
sitting room of her Surrey home and the headquarters of the British Kidney
Patients Association. “And the widening of the scope most certainly denies in
many cases the use of donor kidneys.”
Unlike the heart and liver the
kidney is a resilient organ, it can survive for several hours outside the body
and can be removed quite successfully for transplant after the heart has
stopped beating. Mrs Ward went on to explain how this enabled relatives to say
a proper and dignified goodbye to their loved ones whereas now donors bodies
have to be clinically kept alive on a machine while the brain is dead and the
soul departed.
Consistent high profile over
more than two decades has kept the card ever in the public eye but, in spite of
more than 60% of the populations supporting the programme, only a fraction of
this number actually carry one. The government’s multi-million-pound
advertising campaign of 1993 did absolutely nothing to increase the numbers
carrying the donor card.
Even though an individual may
carry a card and fully desire to help others after their death by offering
organs for transplant, such wishes may not be complied with. Doctors faced with
the difficult task of breaking the news to the next of kin that their loved one
is dead often elect to avoid compounding matters by seeking permission to take
organs. Strictly speaking this permission is not required by law but doctors
simply will not proceed without it.
Professor Cyril Chantler of Guys
Hospital, possibly the leading paediatric renal specialist in the country,
explains: “… it doesn't seem to work very well and I am now personally
convinced that we should have an opt out system. In other words it should be
the convention, it should be the normal practise that after somebody has been
pronounced dead their kidneys can be used for others unless they have said they
do not wish it to happen.”
A Gallup Poll commissioned by
the British Kidney Patients Association shows 61% of the population firmly in
favour of such a system.
An opt out system already
exists in Belgium, Austria, Finland, France, Norway and Singapore. There was an
increase of 119% in the number of transplants carried out in Belgium during the
first year of the change.
For the kidney patient,
dialysis means being connected to a machine for three or more hours up to four
times a week and the almost impossibility of living a normal life. Professor Chantler
is quite clear, “To me the only satisfactory final treatment for somebody with
serious kidney disease is a kidney transplant, only a kidney transplant will
restore normal life.”
Over five thousand patients
are currently on call for an organ transplant but last year only 2,730 of which
were kidney transplant operations. Many of those still waiting will die before a
donor is found. It is true that even with a transplant some of them may still
die but without the opportunity of a transplant they are not even given a
chance.
Mrs Ward son Timbo died
undergoing surgery but call it destiny, call it divine intent, his life was not
without purpose. A devout Christian, his mother, believes he was sent to spur
action towards having the donor the card and the formation of a National
Association to promote the cause of kidney patience.
Although Mrs Ward now thinks
the donor card is moving towards becoming a failure, I feel she is perhaps a
little too hard on the development of her own idea. While it may have many
failings, from the point of view of the 2,730 patients who did receive a
transplant in last year alone it has been a miracle.
But what are the future ? Mrs
Ward is now campaigning furiously for the opt out system advocated by Professor
Chantler and the government is taking a serious view of the proposals. However,
without the full support of the medical profession, in particular the
transplant surgeons, a change is not likely for a while yet, perhaps not for
another generation.
Until that time it is vital we
all give careful consideration to carrying at all times a donor card. Do you
have one ? Have you told your relatives about your wishes ?
Sitting at her hospital
bedside my daughter turned to me and said; “Look Dad I have a donor card. I've crossed
out kidneys, they would not be much use to anyone but they can have everything
else !”
It brought a tear to my eye.
Having been given back to us by the miracle of a transplant the idea of losing
her in some tragic accident is unthinkable. But if it should be, I would have
no hesitation at all in seeing her wishes were carried out.
You can pick up a donor card
from your doctor's surgery, your local chemist shop or write to either myself
or Mrs Ward and we will gladly send you one.
Mrs
Elizabeth Ward passed away on Monday 20th July 2020 at the age of
93. She may be gone but her love and all that love achieved lives on and will
continue to live on for decades and decades and decades to come. Thank You
Elizabeth Ward, I am so privileged to have spent this time with you.
I
am working hard on the project – now up to 66,433 words. Aiming to finish and
publish in two weeks time.
Today’s
chapter is a collection of personal anecdotes telling how GOING THE EXTRA MILE COMES NATURAL TO OUR NHS.
If you wish to comment or to add any thoughts/experiences of your own please hit me on FACEBOOK or drop me an e-mail.
ALWAYS remember that every second of every day our NHS goes the EXTRA MILE...
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 Maternity
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 Incredible Hospital Milton Keynes where staff do not
ever treat patients they only and always care for them.
I
would not recommend breaking your ribs, it is a big time painful experience. In
hospital 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 within 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. I am not planning to break my ribs again
but have to make it clear the pain I suffered was worth enduring for the love
our NHS wrapped around me.
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, the 111 non-emergency number was not in use back then. The system was to
call your local GP’s surgery 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 dog bite, he cared for him
and all was well.
When
I moved to live in Milton Keynes, when I came to attend teacher training
college in 1971 where 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 every inch of the way
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 years after I first became a
patient of Doctor Jarvis there he was in retirement but naturally going the
extra mile, doing what came normal to him.
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 University Amazing Beautiful Loving Utterly
Incredible 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 show
love to our family.
GOING
THE EXTRA MILE – That is what comes naturally every day right across our
National Health Service.
Doctor,
doctor ! Do you have something for a
headache ? Yes, try this hammer.
