The day I was a pirate
So I used to work for a magazine about the NHS. Glam, hey?

I went to an NHS conference in Birmingham, forward wind through drinking and revelling with the NHS administrators, to find me participating in a piggyback race (carrying) through the cobbled streets in a suit, and more to the point, in black shoes.

So next thing, I wake up in casualty, without my glasses, and a rather impressive cut right under my eye. Like, RIGHT under, due to the lens of my glasses coming out, and then into my face. Basically millimeters from being blind. Now I'm actually fine with my own blood, and despite there being lots of it, I was a model casualty patient, replying, "no don't worry, you see to that car crash first" until they eventually got to me at about 6am.

Junior doctor comes and looks, and notices me still wearing an "NHS Clinical Excellence" badge, and pretty much runs away immediately to go and get someone senior. Eventually patched up and so far, so good. Yay, the NHS works.

BUT THEN, and this still annoys me to this day, the buggers were really unhelpful to my utterly blind and hundreds of miles from my spare pair of glasses state. Took sodding ages to get anyone to help me find a phone (literally can't see more than a foot away without glasses) to get a cab.

And the pirate thing? On the train back to London, I looked a right old state, and everyone else was ignoring the seeping stitched up mess under my eye. Except a girl aged, I guess, about six, who promptly asked me if I was a pirate. I, obviously, replied that I certainly was, and had one of the most entertaining conversations of my life. She was very intrigued that the worst thing about walking the plank was getting splinters.

***EDIT*** Oh, and, can I just say that having spent many years working with the NHS (although not for them) they do a frankly astonishingly good job, almost all the time, given the task facing them. The poor buggers just get kicked publicly for the incredibly small proportion of cock-ups.

And this comes from a fairly irredeemable free-market capitalist. They are the slightly irritating, but welcome, exception to my general rules...
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Tue 16 Mar 2010, 15:02, 3 replies)

utterly support your opinion on the NHS.
bloody good chaps.
( ExactlyHowLongDoIHaveToBeHere, Tue 16 Mar 2010, 15:30, closed)

This is worth clicking
purely on the basis of this: "the worst thing about walking the plank was getting splinters."

officelols.
(anvil, Tue 16 Mar 2010, 15:46, closed)

The BBC also.
Private sector is not always best.
(Land of Green Ginger It's dreamy weather, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 10:01, closed)