Waiting for the Doctor

I’ve been down with sinusitis for some months now. The problem flares up and then recedes. Every time I think I’m finally on the road to recovery, the problem flares up again. I’ve seen the GP several times and have tried all the steroid nasal sprays. I’ve also rinsed my nose with saline solution and breathed in steam with my head under a towel. But none of these have done the trick. In desperation, I returned to the GP. He said I’d have to see a specialist. There was just one problem. Seeing an ENT consultant on the NHS would mean a wait of several years. Did I want to be referred privately, he asked?  In a cleft stick, I agreed. He wrote me the referral. It was only one sentence, appended to a list of major events in my medical history. Because of my years of cancer treatment these highlights spread onto two pages. Then I began to research the ENT consultants who work privately and who specialize in sinusitis. The first thing I noted is that there are more private hospitals and clinics than there used to be. Hardly surprising, I suppose, with Northern Ireland having the longest NHS waiting lists in the UK. So I found a specialist at a private hospital in Belfast and sought an initial appointment. Even going private, you still have to wait. But only a matter of weeks, not years. My appointment arrived today.

The specialist asked me about my medical history, symptoms and the treatments I’d tried. Then he looked up my nose with a little light on the end of a thin metal cable. It looked rather like the light that an anglerfish holds in front of its jaws to attract its prey. At the other end of the cable was a little box. This was a screen. He said he could see no problems in the upper chamber of my nose. So I would need a CT scan of my sinuses. Then I’d come back and see him in a couple of weeks.

As I was about to leave, I asked him which NHS hospital he normally worked at. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve jumped ship.’ He explained that he’d got so frustrated working in the NHS. His theatre slots were regularly being cancelled because ENT surgery was not seen as important in the face of resource pressures. He said that in the private sector he could treat his patients more effectively and he got much better job satisfaction. As I listened to him I remembered a recent news item. A report has just been published into waiting times for surgery in the NHS in Northern Ireland. The longest waits are in ENT and Urology. Tragically, these are six years!