Poignancy and the NHS

NO CODE Marta, the ward nurse, came from Poland; our snatched chats exceeded bed pans and blood samples. The state of modern Poland, for instance.

Five days after the op, I was ready to leave. Getting a surgeon’s discharge was often tricky – surgeons could be whisked away to the theatre – but Marta kept up a barrage of phone calls. Early evening I was being towed (backwards) in a wheelchair towards the main entrance.

Marta didn’t have to accompany me but did so. I was touched. I passed through significant swing doors; Marta, following me, abruptly stopped. “I need a code to get back through these doors and I always forget it,” she said.

The gap between us widened, no time to say anything worthwhile. I blew her a kiss, and she blew one back. The door swung and she was gone.

CARE My first surgical appointment was aborted for a week. I needed to get back into my street clothes. In the next bed, was a gaunt elderly man, awake but totally immobile; his expression fixed. To my knowledge he hadn’t moved for at least two hours.

I was curtained off to spare other patients my bare bum. Through the curtain I heard the quiet urgent voice of a nurse assuring Immobilised Man others would look after him when he returned to his solitary home. I, meanwhile, could expect to be greeted by VR and my two daughters.

VOCALS S, a young man in his twenties, had once worked in a bank. Had switched to hospitals and, inexplicably, was now out work. Did odd jobs round the wards. Like me he was taking singing lessons, but for pop music. He sang me a verse and it was clear he’d done his homework. We talked, impassioned.