One good reason to think long and hard before moving to the UK

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Emerson reckoned, which is enough of a rationalisation for my starting a blog, abandoning it, and then grudgingly picking up the thread again. In my estimation, anyway.

So today: (more than) one good reason to hate the goddamned NHS.

Because after 4 years of living in this country, I only just now got my first bona fide doctor’s appointment. And I’m a citizen whose mother tongue is English. How, for the love of god, do refugees/ new immigrants/ people with minimal English ever manage this? My suspicion is that most don’t.

Because when you finally do get an appointment, the doctor looks confused about your symptoms and says, ‘Really? Well. No. I don’t know. You’re very strange.’ Comforting.

Because once you have the tests your doctor insists must be done right now, tonight, can you come back for 7?, the results won’t be back for 6 to 8 weeks.

Part of me is stupid grateful that at least there is some free healthcare, albeit nearly impossible to access, densely bureaucratic, and slow to the point of near-standstill. Part of me thinks it’s kind of Fawlty Towers comical, this bumbling British ineptness, this willingness of people to take a number, queue interminably, mutter under their breath about it. Most of me just thinks, if I should ever find out that I, or someone I love, has something serious that goes untreated or undiagnosed, I’ll be straight onto Google typing ‘molotov how to’.