What IS a health care provider anyway? ... and a bit about wheelchairs
So, after exaxtly one month of trying, and one month to the day of having my new address, I'm finally registered with my new GP
-actually, it was earlier this week, but I'm only journaling it now because I'm totally bored and can't sleep. Also, as moany as it makes my current lj seem, i'm finding it helpful to keep the record, because it keeps the facts clearer and makes subsequent musings easier and decisions faster.
But what happens when you transfer into my new GP's surgery? First you have to fill in all thier paperwork and give proof of address. Then you have to wait 5 to 10 working days to 'get on the system'
THEN you have to see the nurse for a 'health check' for some bizzare inexplicable reason, before being fully registered and allowed to see the doctor. Which was why I had to go to A&E a couple fo weeks ago for something a GP could have easily dealt with, but I've already ranted about that.
This was the all important step of Seeing the Nurse(tm)
For a *health* check
Which was not in fact, in any way, a health check - in was, rather, an illness check.
But I'm using the term 'illness' here very specifically in its sigular sense. It was not an illnesses check. It was a screening for one specific illness - diabeties.
Do you have sugar in your urine? No. Very good. Congratulations, you are now a patient at our practice, and from today on (a month and an A&E visit after you registered) you may now pass go, and collect your GP's visit!
What the all important purpose of that was, or why it was important enough to declair a patient 'not fully registered' and therefore ineligable for any other form of health care, I really don't get. I don't have diabeties. I KNOW I don't have diabieties. All you had to do was ask! Geeze.
It amuses me so much how, in the Uk more htan anywhere else I have experiences, specific places get so caught up on specific things to the exclusion of all else. I can just visualise the 5 year plan submitted for approval for funding somewhere ...
'Our Gp's practice sets the goal of reducing complications of diabeties by 0.11111% each year through improved screening' ... and that turns into a mindless process that serves only to prevent people accessing basic health care that they actually NEED
Somewhere else it will be blood pressure, somewhere else it will be BMI, but everywhere it will be one obsession, taken beyond all heights of OCD, and all rationality and reason lost. And people put at risk of beioming seriously ill because they don't have this one, approved condition, ignored.
At the end of this 'consultation' the nurse asked me if *I* had any questions. so I breifly mentioned that I had just finished with a neurologist and might, possibly, at some point in the future look for a second opinion, but not soon. However, in the interim I had stalled Freedom Pass and DLA applications, and could I now start naming my new GP on these forms, although I'd only seen the nurse not the doctor?
And I was told that...
It is a strict policy of that surgery that they do not ever repeat tests or refer for a second opinion, ever, as it is a drain on resources. The only way they would consider my neurological problems at all is if the GP reads the neurologists report and discovered that they 'missed' a specific test and it wasn't carried out. (But GPs can't order neurological tests - as both my previous GPs have explained to me as a specific problem. To get any of the outstanding tests that havn't been done, such as nerve or mussle biopsies, I would have to go through an actual neurologist anyway)
Secondly they go by diagnosis only in supporting all welfare applications, so without a current diagnosis, under no circumstances whatsoever would they support my applications for DLA or a freedom Pass. They will report back that I am perfectly 100% healthy becasue thats what the MRI found, and the concept that there might be an illness that doesn't show up on an MRI is a concept that they don't conceptualise.
Thats the big impact of the move. I won't be getting a freedom pass or DLA, or any other supports of any sort. I will remain without a diagnosis, and as a result, I will remain with zero help of any sort. I have a feeling that my old GP WOULD have supported it, although I'm not sure, as I didn't get to that point with them.
Part of me feels, fuck them for a shower of wankers, I'll show them, I'll manage by myslef, I'll stagger along on crutches and keep having falls and injuries, and keep getting sicker. No way in fucking hell will I go see that doctor, I don't care how bloody sick I get. Let them scrape my decomposing body from the bed when the end has come and gone, and feel guilty then. *I* don't care.
And then part of me feels, for fuck sake Ciara, get over the holy martyer act, you NEED help. Swallow your pride a figure a way out of this mess.
Its nudged me in one particular way. I have been musing on getting a wheelchair for ages, I've even bid on a few on ebay, but then not followed up with a higher bid when someone else outbid me. Because I don't WANT to get a wheelchair. I can still cope, on a normal day, without one. but having one for longer trips/difficult things like shopping and going on demos would increase my capacity - my capacity for political activism in particular, quite significantly. And, very ironically, in being a proper little consumer who can go up to the shops and back too.
One of the reasons I'd delayed is that the 'proper' way of getting a wheelchair is through a health care provider. Either a GP or physiotherapist will decide you need one, and they will fit you for one. Most come custom made to your specific height and width. You don't, on even a simple level, want one that is any wider than it needs to be, for greater access through doors, on busses etc. But equally you don't want to be squeezing into it. And thats only the tip of the iceberg in term of how wheelchairs are normally designed on prescription to the needs of the specific user, from what I have found out. But you can buy a basic one off the peg, and lots of people do, for lots of reasons. Because it is theoretically possible to pick one up for 50 quid on ebay, and if, like myslef (and S, and other people I know) you don't need one for permanent use but only for occasional use on challenging days... it can be easier to skip the bullshit and buy yourself a basic model. so, I'd conssidered this, often, and looked, and window shopped, but I'd also delayed out of that crippling fear that alowing myself to sit in a wheelchair would be another spiral downward into greater dependancy, and not one I'd be able to get back out of.
But having caved in and used a store chair on a couple of occasions, and zipping around IKEA in a wheelchair instead of staggering around slow-and-stumbling step by slow and stumbling step I began to accept what others were telling me. This isn't about having a less nromal life, this is about having a more normal life, about being able to go places and do things.
but I still wanted ADVICE, and somehow nievely believed that if my GP saw me, they would agree to the process. And talk through the pros and cons properly. Now it looks like I was wrong. So, I'm going to buy one with next months money. I've already over-committed with this months salary, unfortunately. But thats fine, becasue most of the demos I want it for are in spetember and october anyway. August is something of a down month of protests and activism. So, if I order one next pay day, I should have it in plenty of time.
But the wheelchair is only the surface problem. I need to look more closely at how the fuck I maintain my health (and sanity) in this crazy situation. For now, I'm deferring decisions. My surgery is next Thursday. I'm wound up about that as it is, and further musing can wait until that milestone is crossed
-actually, it was earlier this week, but I'm only journaling it now because I'm totally bored and can't sleep. Also, as moany as it makes my current lj seem, i'm finding it helpful to keep the record, because it keeps the facts clearer and makes subsequent musings easier and decisions faster.
But what happens when you transfer into my new GP's surgery? First you have to fill in all thier paperwork and give proof of address. Then you have to wait 5 to 10 working days to 'get on the system'
THEN you have to see the nurse for a 'health check' for some bizzare inexplicable reason, before being fully registered and allowed to see the doctor. Which was why I had to go to A&E a couple fo weeks ago for something a GP could have easily dealt with, but I've already ranted about that.
This was the all important step of Seeing the Nurse(tm)
For a *health* check
Which was not in fact, in any way, a health check - in was, rather, an illness check.
But I'm using the term 'illness' here very specifically in its sigular sense. It was not an illnesses check. It was a screening for one specific illness - diabeties.
Do you have sugar in your urine? No. Very good. Congratulations, you are now a patient at our practice, and from today on (a month and an A&E visit after you registered) you may now pass go, and collect your GP's visit!
What the all important purpose of that was, or why it was important enough to declair a patient 'not fully registered' and therefore ineligable for any other form of health care, I really don't get. I don't have diabeties. I KNOW I don't have diabieties. All you had to do was ask! Geeze.
It amuses me so much how, in the Uk more htan anywhere else I have experiences, specific places get so caught up on specific things to the exclusion of all else. I can just visualise the 5 year plan submitted for approval for funding somewhere ...
'Our Gp's practice sets the goal of reducing complications of diabeties by 0.11111% each year through improved screening' ... and that turns into a mindless process that serves only to prevent people accessing basic health care that they actually NEED
Somewhere else it will be blood pressure, somewhere else it will be BMI, but everywhere it will be one obsession, taken beyond all heights of OCD, and all rationality and reason lost. And people put at risk of beioming seriously ill because they don't have this one, approved condition, ignored.
At the end of this 'consultation' the nurse asked me if *I* had any questions. so I breifly mentioned that I had just finished with a neurologist and might, possibly, at some point in the future look for a second opinion, but not soon. However, in the interim I had stalled Freedom Pass and DLA applications, and could I now start naming my new GP on these forms, although I'd only seen the nurse not the doctor?
And I was told that...
It is a strict policy of that surgery that they do not ever repeat tests or refer for a second opinion, ever, as it is a drain on resources. The only way they would consider my neurological problems at all is if the GP reads the neurologists report and discovered that they 'missed' a specific test and it wasn't carried out. (But GPs can't order neurological tests - as both my previous GPs have explained to me as a specific problem. To get any of the outstanding tests that havn't been done, such as nerve or mussle biopsies, I would have to go through an actual neurologist anyway)
Secondly they go by diagnosis only in supporting all welfare applications, so without a current diagnosis, under no circumstances whatsoever would they support my applications for DLA or a freedom Pass. They will report back that I am perfectly 100% healthy becasue thats what the MRI found, and the concept that there might be an illness that doesn't show up on an MRI is a concept that they don't conceptualise.
Thats the big impact of the move. I won't be getting a freedom pass or DLA, or any other supports of any sort. I will remain without a diagnosis, and as a result, I will remain with zero help of any sort. I have a feeling that my old GP WOULD have supported it, although I'm not sure, as I didn't get to that point with them.
Part of me feels, fuck them for a shower of wankers, I'll show them, I'll manage by myslef, I'll stagger along on crutches and keep having falls and injuries, and keep getting sicker. No way in fucking hell will I go see that doctor, I don't care how bloody sick I get. Let them scrape my decomposing body from the bed when the end has come and gone, and feel guilty then. *I* don't care.
And then part of me feels, for fuck sake Ciara, get over the holy martyer act, you NEED help. Swallow your pride a figure a way out of this mess.
Its nudged me in one particular way. I have been musing on getting a wheelchair for ages, I've even bid on a few on ebay, but then not followed up with a higher bid when someone else outbid me. Because I don't WANT to get a wheelchair. I can still cope, on a normal day, without one. but having one for longer trips/difficult things like shopping and going on demos would increase my capacity - my capacity for political activism in particular, quite significantly. And, very ironically, in being a proper little consumer who can go up to the shops and back too.
One of the reasons I'd delayed is that the 'proper' way of getting a wheelchair is through a health care provider. Either a GP or physiotherapist will decide you need one, and they will fit you for one. Most come custom made to your specific height and width. You don't, on even a simple level, want one that is any wider than it needs to be, for greater access through doors, on busses etc. But equally you don't want to be squeezing into it. And thats only the tip of the iceberg in term of how wheelchairs are normally designed on prescription to the needs of the specific user, from what I have found out. But you can buy a basic one off the peg, and lots of people do, for lots of reasons. Because it is theoretically possible to pick one up for 50 quid on ebay, and if, like myslef (and S, and other people I know) you don't need one for permanent use but only for occasional use on challenging days... it can be easier to skip the bullshit and buy yourself a basic model. so, I'd conssidered this, often, and looked, and window shopped, but I'd also delayed out of that crippling fear that alowing myself to sit in a wheelchair would be another spiral downward into greater dependancy, and not one I'd be able to get back out of.
But having caved in and used a store chair on a couple of occasions, and zipping around IKEA in a wheelchair instead of staggering around slow-and-stumbling step by slow and stumbling step I began to accept what others were telling me. This isn't about having a less nromal life, this is about having a more normal life, about being able to go places and do things.
but I still wanted ADVICE, and somehow nievely believed that if my GP saw me, they would agree to the process. And talk through the pros and cons properly. Now it looks like I was wrong. So, I'm going to buy one with next months money. I've already over-committed with this months salary, unfortunately. But thats fine, becasue most of the demos I want it for are in spetember and october anyway. August is something of a down month of protests and activism. So, if I order one next pay day, I should have it in plenty of time.
But the wheelchair is only the surface problem. I need to look more closely at how the fuck I maintain my health (and sanity) in this crazy situation. For now, I'm deferring decisions. My surgery is next Thursday. I'm wound up about that as it is, and further musing can wait until that milestone is crossed