The Oncologist

Hotfoot from a Board meeting at a prestigious (so I am told) National Newspaper, I trekked on down to Medway Hospital for a meeting with the Oncologist..................

Lest you get carried away thinking that you are reading the ravings of a left wing journalist, I should explain that the Board meeting was that of a small but perfectly formed Community Interest Company. It meets at the offices of the newspaper through the kind assistance of the newspapers Social Affairs Editor who is a valued adviser to the Board.

The story so far had probably not filled you with confidence about the services offered by Medway Hospital. Before you read further, let me reassure you that should you ever be unlucky enough to need the services of an oncologist, I very much doubt that they come better than this chap. Safe to read on now.............

A personal email from a hospital consultant offering to see you on the next working day is an occurrence so rare it rivals successfully striking a match on an unset jelly for improbablity. Having received such an offer, how could I not meet the person behind the invitation? It would have been impolite in the extreme which might be a good enough reason, but my curiosity was the main motivation for accepting the invitation.

He had even told me where the "Galton Day Unit" could be found: on the right of the main Hospital entrance. Should have been easy. I walked from the other side of the hospital and stopped at one of their tiny hospital maps which has every department listed in alphabetical order:


Endoscopy                             Green 1 (I shall bear that in mind for Wednesday!)
Eye Unit                                 Blue 2
General Office                       Blue 2

Hang on a minute...............no Galton Day Unit!!!!

So I looked to see which building was to the right of the main entrance: The Macmillan Cancer Care . Centre. Aha, that must be it.

Walked around the corner, notcice directing me to "Elderly and Mental Health" left over from the 1920s..............walked a bit further.............entrance to what I think was a mental health unit..............walked a bit further, a doorway over which there was a sign announcing proudly that this was the Macmillan Cancer Care Centre which includes the Galton Day Unit.......phew!

Best decor I have seen so far in the most modern building I have yet seen on the site, even if the entrance is tucked away near the works department. Something tells me that the "we try to keep cancer quiet so as not to scare people" mentality is alive and well in Medway.

On the dot of 5, a smiling young man came into the waiting room and called my name. Being well trained, I got off the chair and followed him. This was the oncologist! He smiled, he greeted me cordially, he listened, he explained things as if he were talking to an equal, in short he was everything you could hope for in a consultant. I won't bore you with details, but we had  a "groovy" time talking about scans (I finally got to see the MRI scan of the relevant bits; will definitely apply for a copy of that under Access to health Records!), the state of my prostate, the state of the health service, my views on what treatment I should have etc.

I could not resist trying to find out what had provoked such a sudden offer, and may have dropped the odd hint about understanding that I might somehow be not the most popular client they had seen for a while and that people might have been talking to each other. His charming evasions, laugh and close inspection of the floor every time anything like that came up said it all, although of course he denied anything of the sort.

Such a pity that the hospital does not offer the treatment that I want; I would have had no trouble trusting a department run by this chap.

With luck, that is the end of the cancer journey at Medway Hospital; off to London for the next bit. A whole new set of people to get to know............and blog about I expect.

Just have the endoscopy to get out of the way and I should be back to the 21st century!

Meanwhile, a footnote: the manager from Medway Hospital emailed me again this morning. Apart from getting my name wrong, she "appreciate(s) and respect(s) my decision not to discuss my treatment". To be fair, she did go on to offer her assistance if I wanted it. Full marks to her for trying, she is the only representative of the hospital who has made any effort to respond to a blog which must be pretty painful to read for managers of a hospital in special measures.

My only plea for assistance if you are reading this brave manager is please take the things I have pointed out seriously and do something about them: tell the Director of Nursing, the Medical Director, the acting Chief Exec about the blog, ask them to read it. This is not a work of fiction, it was all real and has even been sanitised in some parts so as not to scare readers too much.  I got through it by fighting, being bloody minded and knowing which buttons to press; the vast majority of your customers are not equipped to do what I have done. Over to you.............

And now today's song.............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UCDmsWcNfE