Technoblog
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Sorry techies, NHS rant follows:
PPCT
As a result of an eye condition that developed over the weekend (last weekend of March 2004) I would like to bring two issues to your attention, the second one perhaps of more interest to Portsmouth patients:
A: On Sunday 28 March 2004 I decided to make use of the emergency GP services of HDOC, operating from Havant Rd, Drayton. I saw Dr Raw (at least that is what I think he called himself), who impressed me unfavourably by a) trying rather to appease rather than diagnose, adding that his role was to "see patients through the weekend" so that they can consult their regular GPs for proper treatment b) he showed unwillingness to use the NHS prescription form, instead he sought some scrap paper to give me the name of a product (he said he was not sure whether antibiotics or an eyewash was best for me, he went for the eyewash) c) he suggested I use his "home" pharmacy, the Fratton Rd Tremletts (his practice is nearby) and mention his name to them. Even though that pharmacy is a sensible option for a Sunday afternoon, I do find the whole sequence of events bizarre. If nothing else, it meant that I had to pay out-of-pocket for his recommended medication.
B) Today, 30 March 2004, my patient-doctor relationship with my GP Dr Foord, Waverley Rd, Southsea practice suffered a breakdown and although I have no intention to complain about that, I do have to find another practice to take me on, as well as the medical attention I still need. I've only had time to try the Victoria Rd South practice and, although one member of staff started my registration process, another member of staff put a halt to it by claiming that: a) NHS doesn't allow "internal transfers" (same catchment area) b) their own policy is to admit only people who have recently moved to the area c) they ignored my right to emergency "unregistered" treatment saying my usual GP should give it. I feel that their third claim is a triumph of bureaucracy over patient care - they seemed rather unperturbed that my potentially serious condition would go undiagnosed/untreated for another 24 hours at least. If they are correct about the former two points as well, it would seem that a patient's right to choose a doctor has been severely compromised. Indeed, their alleged problem with the internal transfer implies that I can never find another local GP, there are a few but I would be an "internal transfer" to all of them.
It is obviously a disappointment for me to have my application rejected by administrative staff instead of the actual doctors. But to make my GP situation similar to the NHS dentist one where people have to travel 100 miles to find one would be a tragedy. Previously, I have had unfortunate experiences with Portsmouth NHS Hospitals as well, but I didn't make any complaints as I've discovered they have minimum ratings anyway, meaning they know very well their own problems.
However, it is important to keep the area of responsibility of the PCT more compassionate, caring, flexible and responsive. I hope that if Hdoc and/or the Victoria Rd practice have somehow failed to deliver you will be firm and quick to point it out, perhaps even using a leaflet to address the complexities of changing one's GP, if indeed it has become so complex. In more immediate terms, I still need to find out how to change my GP or at get some emergency treatment. I hope I can find out by dialing a few numbers tomorrow, but if you happen to read my complaint soon enough a reply would be appreciated.
Best regards,
A
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Jobs Talk about reptilians in key positions! I don't think there are any, but I wouldn't be surprised if my bad luck with the "establishment" recently was down to phylogenetic differences. Fraser Mackay, director of Afghanaid (UK's main Afghanistan charity postafg@aol.com) has been the latest in a string of "establishment" figures that wouldn't want to work with me AND wouldn't like to tell me why. I'll keep you posted on that, suffice it to say that this is all the more reason to give all of them the two fingers, yeah.
On the raid front, I decided to for a SuSE 9 installation with its software RAID 1 support, which went pretty much as expected (as intuitive as possible), except that the boot loader (LILO) is installed only on the first disk, which would be very bad news should that disk fail. Of course I went for RAIDing swap space as well (too bad the autopartition feature hasn't got a RAID mode, I ended up defining only two times two partitions, swap and all-inclusive-root). It looks like performance may have been somewhat affected, while noise and disk temperature on the Shuttle don't seem very far from critical - I hope I can think of something. Apt-get on SuSE is satisfactory as usual, if you don't want to go stretch of course. I've stretched it some and now eagerly wait to see what happens - it hasn't broken, although there is no obvious way to upgrade KDE anymore - I went my own way of course, the usual volunteers had that all worked out.
