Ann Garner

…. kept me tucked up in bed with the Observer for a valued few hours this morning.  In contrast, we left home at 7.15am yesterday morning to collect my Dad on route to Rochdale Infirmary, an 8 mile motorway treck away.  We found the place and had even remembered to take change with us for the £1.70 pay and display ticket.  Back at home, eating crumpets and mulling over the early start, I’d just commented that all had gone well, when the phone rang to collect him.  He shouldn’t have been there …… a blood test taken weeks before meant that he really needed a different appointment in a different hospital, on a different day, which we’ll have to wait for.  So hubby returned to do the 16 mile round trip to collect him and by 10.30, Dad was reinstated at home.

     Last weeks’ aborted appointment was at a closer hospital and Dad, for once, took at taxi (£9.60) to then be told he couldn’t start the physio sessions without the results from the procedure that he was to have yesterday that will now take place in several weeks.  It then took him 1 ½ hours to return home on his free bus pass on local buses.

     If you are getting perplexed, my Dad is!  Somebody else could have had his theatre slot at Rochdale yesterday and somebody else benefited from the cancelled physio slot.  The staff are lovely and constantly apologetic. I’m more than thankful that my Dad is still with us after his heart attack too.  However, had Dad still been part of the workforce, delays such as this will have meant a longer recovery time and prolonged time from work – costing his employer expense.  Why, I wonder with technology to hand, aren’t professionals working closer together to prevent wasted appointments?

     For us as a family, it’s the not knowing when appointments will be or where across Pennine Acute’s four major hospitals.  It makes me wonder about the strain on the finances, health and well being of people who need necessary help to recover from illness too!