Tag archives for Bridgnorth

This after­noon I found myself sit­ting in Bridg­north hos­pi­tal await­ing an X-ray. It is, like just about every hos­pi­tal depart­ment I’ve been to, the domain of capa­ble women. Moth­ers of the NHS, the women who can.

But these women, long on respon­si­bil­ity, long on prac­ti­cal­ity, long on care, can be short on patience. The whole depart­ment is lit­tered with the signs of their not want­ing to repeat the same old stuff over and over again to the poor pun­ters who stump up the cor­ri­dor. The signs are there in the sheer num­ber of signs.

Sit­ting on my own, await­ing my appoint­ment, I noticed that the reg­u­la­tion NHS blue and white plas­tic sign on the door of the staff toi­let (read­ing “Staff Toi­let”) was embell­ished with a notice typed out in 72pt Comic Sans on a piece of A4 paper: “This is NOT a pub­lic toi­let”. The word “NOT” was fur­ther enhanced with flu­o­res­cent marker (now faded).

Behind me, another fac­tual notice (“X-ray results will not be given today, but will be deliv­ered to your GP”) was sim­i­larly backed up with the more emo­tional (and lam­i­nated) print­out: “Take respon­si­bil­ity for col­lect­ing your X-ray’s from your GP”.

Feel­ing a lit­tle chas­tised, I was struck by the matro­n­is­ing tone. For the love of God just take some respon­si­bil­ity! And evi­dently I was not alone in being struck by this. In a fee­ble attempt at defi­ance, some past patient had taken the time to cir­cle the greengrocer’s apos­tro­phe on “X-ray’s”, the blue biro inad­e­quately mark­ing the laminate.

I myself had been sit­ting and con­sid­er­ing how to guerilla-edit “This is NOT a pub­lic toi­let”, by delet­ing all the words and replac­ing them with the much more use­ful “Near­est pub­lic toi­let down the cor­ri­dor, sec­ond left”. A small tonal adjust­ment, with a judi­cious sprin­kling of fact, to pre­vent the patients from feel­ing bad for just want­ing to answer nature’s call.

The frus­tra­tion inher­ent in these lit­tle notices was reduced to its most per­fect form on the inside of the heavy lead door of the X-ray room itself. Called in, and wait­ing for the atten­dant to ver­ify my X-ray, I saw a small grubby sticker at eye-height, declar­ing in Times New Roman: PULL.

Imag­ine the synap­ti­cal adjust­ment that goes on in a person’s head when they’ve just pushed a pull door. Now mul­ti­ply that by the num­ber of peo­ple that must troop through that door­way every day. Imag­ine the resent­ment that must build up in you if you’re the poor X-ray atten­dant who has to not only see but antic­i­pate every sin­gle patient on your list doing the same thing – they’re going to push it, I just know they’re going to push it! …Gah!

Indulge me a moment: All of this brings to mind the time back in 2000, when Jols and I reg­is­tered at a new surgery in Wolver­hamp­ton. Here’s what hap­pened: we reg­is­tered, then within an hour we realised there was a closer surgery, so we went back to retrieve our med­ical cards. All well and good. But between the surgery and the pub­lic high­way was a sin­gle set of dou­ble doors. As is often the case, only one of the doors was unlocked. We passed through those doors on four occa­sions (in, out, in, out), and – I could blame myself for this – Jols led the way through the doors on all four jour­neys. The sequence I endured was as follows:

1. In: Push the locked one; pull the locked one; push the unlocked one; pull the unlocked one and through.
2. Out: Pull the locked one; push the locked one; pull the unlocked one; push the unlocked one and through.
3. In: Push the locked one; pull the locked one; push the unlocked one; pull the unlocked one and through.
4. Out: Pull the locked one; push the locked one; pull the unlocked one…

It was at this moment that I snapped, and his­tory records that I shouted: “LOOK AND ASSESS!”

It turns out that one of the things I uncon­sciously do as I approach a set of dou­ble doors is to look at the shape of the join­ery and where the doorstops are sit­u­ated, and con­clude which door is likely to be unlocked, and which way it might go. I almost always pass through unchecked. This is not some­thing Jols does. She hasn’t the time for that kind of thing. So I under­stand the frus­tra­tion, I really do.

It was the tone of these notices that left me feel­ing pre­judged. The world, these women have clearly con­cluded, is full of idiots.

Maybe the thing to do is what the X-ray atten­dant actu­ally did, She said: “You’re free to go now; the results will be avail­able from your GP in about 10 days.” That’s right, she accepted that some­times you have to take the respon­si­bil­ity of speak­ing.

“Yes,” I said, appre­cia­tively, “I under­stand that. I’ll be sure to make an appoint­ment.” I had read and absorbed the sign out­side. Tick.

I picked up my bag and coat, and pushed the door.

I pulled the door.