NHS Fail

 

A colleague just told me of his recent travails with our illustrious health system. It is brilliant (from a pub anecdote point of view at least).

Apparently a couple of months ago he ended up with an inch-long wood splinter stuck deep in his arm while moving a wardrobe.  At the time he went in the local NHS walk-in centre, where they were unable to extract said splinter with the means at their disposal.  He was then referred to the local A&E where they anaesthetised his arm, made an incision and went at it with the tweezers. Still no joy.

So they made an appointment with the local orthopaedics department for a couple of weeks later.  Appointment comes, he is told that they just do bones and that what he needs is an appointment with Excisions (which I think means somewhere within Dermatology).
An appointment with whoever is made for another couple of weeks time

So he finds himself this morning -with a splinter which is completely healed over and now several millimetres under his skin- phoning the admin number to see about the scheduling of his morning appointment and what time he can expect to get back to work afterwards. He is told:

“Oh you won’t be able to go back to work after a vasectomy”

Yes, really. They’d booked him in for the Snip.

Envy of the world, it is.