Health & Safety?!

In the UK, a normal, healthy pregnancy is presided over by a usually benevolent midwife until the actual birth. However, if there is some sort of complication such as high blood pressure, or - like me - you take 'non-approved' medication daily, you get referred to an OB-GYN in the antenatal clinic. Admittedly, some may not see this as a positive but for me (and my worried mom back in Cape Town) it was SUCH a relief!! It seemed ludicrous to not see a bona fide gynaecologist AT ALL during my entire pregnancy -- though this is not to say NHS midwives are ignorant or inept.

In South Africa, the norm is that your medical aid (for which you pay through your, um, ... nose) pays for regular visits to gynaes of considerable reputation and skill who're lodged in a private hospital or medical centre. At the birth, the gynae is the one who oversees the most crucial parts of the process --- a reassuring thought at the least.

A number of my friends've had babies delivered via the NHS -- the children are all healthy little buggers: so how bad could it be? Care differs from hospital to hospital, apparently... An article in the weekend paper told about the tragedy of a mentally 'all there', gracefully dignified 72 year old who was shifted from one NHS hospital to another - and received appalling 'care' from the nurses on her ward: they were apparently verbally and physically rough with her, belittling and often just not available! Thankfully, a South African friend of mine works as a PA in Northampton hospital and has guaranteed it's quite okay in terms of all those things I'm just a tad concerned about: hygiene, consistently efficient and kindly care etc.

However... now safety can't really be included in that list! While I was visiting the antenatal clinic (with my Nigerian gynae!) there was what is commonly called, here in the UK, 'an incident'. A 63 year old man had JUST been examined by a young cardiologist in a ward of 28 people -- nothing seemed out of the ordinary or alerted the young doctor of what was about to happen... While examining the next patient, through the thin separating curtain he heard what sounded like a loud scuffle --- his previous patient had shot himself in the head, the gun slipping to the floor from his suddenly lifeless hand... No doubt the other 27 patients are receiving some sort of trauma counselling while the hospital's Big Guns (oops -- no pun intended) will be seriously revising their beloved Health & Safety standards!

No-one would think to check an incoming patient for weapons - but maybe when I'm howling and barking in a wheelchair from hideously powerful contractions at the reception of the labour ward in March next year, they'll be rifling through my overnight bag of nappies and maternity pads, doing a full body search for knives, guns and who knows WHAT the paranoid in the NHS might then deem a 'weapon'!? Car keys? (see )

On a less sarcastic note, the man who took his life had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. (And here, I am silenced.)