June 2022

A blast from the past. My past. That’s Chatsworth Park up there. The place where Chatsworth House lives. Inspiration (allegedly) for Pemberley from Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, but it shouldn’t be held to account just for that. Apparently, some folks can read it without feeling bilious! Each to his own. Chatsworth is a place very near to where we live and somewhere that I have spent many hours from back in the early seventies until the present day. We went the other day to see some sculptures that are on display and I realised just how long it had been since I had last visited. Isn’t it always the way though: the little gems that live right on our doorstep are so often neglected? We don’t appreciate what we have until it’s taken away.

I think I’d like to talk about what we have and what we might have taken away because, for me especially, it is extremely relevant at this moment in time.

I’ve been healthy almost all my life. Suffered all the expected childhood problems with bugs and illnesses. Even a few minor surgeries as I got older. But all relatively mild. Early this year I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes which is a bit of a downer and almost certainly down to lifestyle. I need to get back out running and maybe I can get off the medication. As a result of this condition, the docs have had a plentiful supply of blood from me and they’ve gone to town with it. All good as it is the equivalent of a full service. Unfortunately, PSA levels were slightly raised (5.4 and 4.8) but nothing that rang alarm bells. However, it put me in a category where further tests would be carried out. Since February this year I have had multiple blood tests, consultations, a CT Scan, an MRI Scan, and a Nuclear Imaging Bone Scan. I also had biopsies taken and was told that I was in the early stages of Prostate Cancer.

I mean, that was a blow in itself but all that attention I received was completely free. No cost whatsoever. And nothing to do with age. Everybody in this country would get the same treatment. Just the investigation itself must run into a cost of many thousands.

Last Friday (17th) I had a Radical Robotic Prostatectomy. Some of the most advanced surgery on offer today. I stayed in hospital for two nights with (obviously) twenty four hour care. I’m now sitting at home, recovering, still with access to expert advice (I only rang up yesterday and was answered within seconds). I have an array of tablets to take and follow-up appointments over the next few weeks and then monitoring every three months and then six months into the future. The cost of all this must now stretch into the tens of thousands (I checked on private healthcare and just the surgery alone would be almost £20k and that’s after the NHS have done all the heavy lifting to start with). All this is free.

Free.

I have no debt or bill.

It’s Free.

Now, Chatsworth House and gardens might be precious (other stately homes are available) but the right to walk around those grounds, for free, pales into insignificance to what has just been spent on me. If I was in a country that didn’t have the NHS (most) then I would probably be looking at having to sell a younger child or grandchild to pay for what I’ve had done.

Free.

No cost.

I know there’s an argument that health insurance could take the place of the taxes that we have paid over the years. But does anyone think for a second that our taxes would reduce by even a penny if we were forced into buying health insurance? They wouldn’t. And we are already creeping towards that model. Dental costs; optician charges; Physio charges; Consultation costs, are all included in health insurance plans but they only cover a certain amount and then they run dry. I pay every month into a scheme for all of these and it is a constant conversation in our house about wether those costs are worth it. We pay out and don’t use the facilities, especially through these two Covid years. Or we claim and it only covers fifty percent of the cost. Huge arithmetic hoops to jump through to work out the pros and cons.
We do question the economic benefits of these schemes and we’ve been in an incredibly lucky position of always being able to afford to live adequately. We’ve struggled over the years, like everyone else, especially the early ones, but always had food on the table, always been able to clothe ourselves and heat the house (that could be changing soon!) but imagine if you were watching every single penny as a twenty or thirty year old, maybe with kids. Would you cough up the cash to pay for medical insurance that would cover the likes of what I’ve just had? You’d have to weigh up the probabilities.
I think everything would be at the bare minimum. Families are having to rely on food banks; I doubt they can put a few hundred or thousand aside to deal with unexpected medical bills. And they are unexpected. Twelve months ago, there was nothing wrong with me, or so I thought. If it wasn’t for the NHS then I would still be of that belief.  If I had been relying on medical insurance, would the tests have been carried out with the same tenacity as they were? Would they have even been carried out at all? I had no symptoms, remember? Shit happens when it’s least expected and that’s why the system we have here exists in the first place.

Things hit us out of the blue. We’re just getting by, just managing to cope with everything that’s thrown at us on a day to day basis and then, suddenly, the roof falls in. There’s a storm and the trees bring everything down. James Paine’s corn mill suffered an unexpected attack from nature and the elements and it’s only because the Duchess threw a shit load of money at it that it still there to be seen. Without that money, it would be no more.

I’ve just had a shit load of money thrown at me. And any of you out there who suffer a similar fate will also have a shit load of money thrown at you.  And they will keep throwing it at you until you are either well or they can do no more. That is not how medical insurance works. And if you are unlucky enough to have a pre-existing condition… you’re on your own.

It’s all fairly obvious, what I’m saying, and none of it should be news to anyone. It’s just that, when it happens to you, personally, it hits home really how fortunate we are.
At no point have we had to discuss what we can afford and what we can’t. The only expense up to now has been parking charges at the hospital and the least said about those, the better.

Then the other day, I started to get strange pains. I assumed I was recovering well and had been reducing the opiates (seemed sensible). Early hours on Saturday (two thirty in the morning) I was in crippling pain. I rang the ward I’d been on and they gave us the nod to go in and see a doc. I swallowed what few meds I had left and we got into my best friend’s van. I was checked out by nurses, then by a doctor who concluded I’d been too ambitious with my pain reduction. Another doctor then said she would like me to have a scan to rule out any complications. I spent another twenty four hours in hospital, full attention, care and food and drinks culminating in a CT scan at half eleven and then a doctor coming to see me at gone midnight to assure me that everything ‘looked okay in there.’
I spent the night on a ward with three other seriously poorly, quite elderly men. They received fabulous care throughout the night (making me feel a bit of an imposter). The staff worked tirelessly and without complaint throughout the night. How much would I have increased my bill again now, I wonder?

I know, I’ve gone on about this a lot now but it really is a case of not appreciating what you have. It’s easy to take the view that ‘maybe folk could contribute a bit more’ but this ignores the mental impact of that kind of policy. The one thing I would emphasise through these months of fabulous care and attention is that we have not had to think once about money. Not once.

We really don’t know how lucky we are and we are being blindly led by thieves and charlatans into a world where we will no longer have any of it. They don’t care because it doesn’t impact them in any way whatsoever. Stay well, and vote sensibly.

However, I can’t leave it there without a bit of a moan: Spotify. Is it even possible to stop it from applying shuffle when you choose an album to listen to. Kula Shaker album ruined! Played the first and last track one after the other. Anyone who knows the album will know how buggered up that is. Who at Spotify truly believe that a heartless, not very well-written algorithm knows better than the artists and producers of a piece of work with regard to the order the tracks should be played in?

I’m going back to vinyl.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Please, please think about what I’ve said here (the NHS not Spotify).

It’s important.

See you all in July!