Adventures in British Healthcare, or Why I Will Never, Ever, in a Billion Years Support Socialized Medicine

I was recently in England for business and came down with a pretty nasty head cold/earache. I had a hint of danger when my ears started ringing a couple of days before I left, so I knew the flight might be... uncomfortable. As a sidebar, why is it called "ringing"? In my experience, it's much more like a constant "EEEEEEEEEEEE" than a nice healthy bell ringing. I've tried singing the note, but can't ever seem to find it. Anywho...

I was taking Dayquil, which, since the discovery that desperate meth fiends can cook their drug of choice using Sudafed, has converted over to the most utterly worthless decongestant known to man, phenlanline... fennel-analeen... finale-lien... that thing. I suspect I would have had similar results by swallowing medicinal Skittles or poking my nose with a pencil. I was also taking an antibiotic that my doctor had said to take if things didn't clear up after a few days. Alas, it was apparently not strong enough. After the trans-atlantic flight, my ears filled with sand and simply refused to equalize.

By Monday, the first day of work involving the people we were actually supporting, my hearing had decreased to, by my estimate, about 50% of what it should have been. I could barely hear the primary speakers and the odd snide comment from the peanut gallery resulting in general laughter caused me to look like someone with a non-existent sense of humor. I considered fashioning an ear trumpet out of an unclassified document, but decided that might cause me to be permanently assigned to the "Do not allow out of the basement" list. After much prodding from my wife, I resolved to taste the fruits of the UK health care system.

My first attempt was to have one of the receptionist types contact the occupational health nurse on base. Had this proved successful, I probably would have saved a lot of time, but, since said nurse proved mythical, I was forced to seek another route. Once back to the hotel, I asked the front desk if they had a contact number for a doctor, or GP, as the Brits would say. (They also ask if you'd like your fast food to "take away" and have signs informing you that this is the "way out". Craziness!) Having secured a connection to the GP clinic, I was informed that the soonest I could see anyone would be Thursday at 15:15. Not great, but I made an appointment. They also said if I needed to be seen earlier, I could go to the Walk In Centre (Center) at St. Mary's.

In that I was in pain and functionally deaf, I coerced a co-worker to come along with me to hospital. (Note the intentional lack of the word "the" before hospital. The Brits seem to drop unnecessary articles and letters. One goes to hospital. The WWII prime minister was named Winston Cheuchill. I don't even know how to render the lack of the letter "r" in Churchill. I digress.) After 5-10 minute taxi ride, we arrived at St. Mary's. The wrong entrance to St. Mary's. We wandered through the mist to the other side of the place and found a pretty full waiting room of non-life-threatingly ill Brits. I checked in, filled out my paperwork and waited. My co-worker still hadn't recovered from his hangover the night before, so he snoozed. Couldn't blame him. After an hour, they called my name.

The charge nurse (a man), heard my tale of woe, and then told me that I was screwed. This was a nurse clinic (no doctors allowed!), and since I was already on an antibiotic, there wasn't anything they could do for me. He didn't look at my ears, since this was merely the get your vitals and make sure you're not going to expire in the room whilst waiting for someone to see you for real part of the exam. In fact, if I chose to stay, it would likely be another 2-3 hours. Awesome. He also gave me the number of an out-of-hours GP clinic in some other town 5 miles away. I could call them, tell them my woes, and they would call back with advice ("Take two aspirin and call me in six months when I have an appointment to speak with you.")

I convinced the receptionist to let me use her phone, gave my info to the lady at the clinic, and waited. After about 5 minutes, which I think likely violated several British laws, they called back and I spoke with a doctor. I'm not sure where he originated. He could have been Indian, he could have been Bulgarian. English was definitely not his native tongue. He told me to find a stronger decongestant and if things got worse, to come in. I had just spent several hours of my life to find out I needed Sudafed. Sigh. We got another taxi back to the hotel.

I should back up a bit. As far as I can tell, stores in England are rarely open when people actually need them to be open. Typical hours are 1000 to 1800. 8 hours. The 8 hours that people are most likely to be, I dunno, AT WORK! I have no idea how British commerce actually transpires, in that no one is available to frequent stores during the hours they are open. The pharmacist around the corner from our hotel, Boots (founded by the monkey from Dora the Explorer), followed this pattern. I'd considered going in and asking the pharmacist what they recommended, but the place was never open when I was available. I probably would have had better luck finding someone to sell me meth, assuming they didn't have day jobs preventing them from buying Sudaphed.

I resolved to stay at the hotel on Tuesday until Boots (the monkey) opened, so I could acquire some bigger drugs, and then take a taxi up to work. After a cough-laden night, I got a phone call from our project's event lead telling me that the government lead said I should take the day off. Ok. I waited until 10, bought Sudafed, Vick's equivalent of Afrin, some more ibuprofen, and a couple of 750 ml bottles of water. Back to the hotel, for some pill-popping and spray-snorting, and I started feeling pretty good. This general combination of drugs managed to get most of my hearing back for the rest of the week and not rupture my ear drums on the flight home.

What have I learned from all this? Socialized medicine is the worst idea ever! Ok, the Holocaust might be a bit worse of an idea. And slavery. And eating the apple. Fine, socialized medicine is the fourth worst idea ever! If it was this hard to get someone to look inside my ears, a task of roughly 30 seconds and never actually occurred, I can't imagine what travails someone has to go through to get an X-ray or MRI. The politicians who are beating the single-payer drum really need to experience this first hand, with no VIP status. They might realize that paying more than 50% of your income in taxes and getting virtually nothing in return is the acme of foolishness.

The other thing I've learned is that the reason England no longer rules 1/4 of the globe is that it's frightfully difficult to manage an empire between the hours of 10 and 6.

As a final note, within 24 hours of returning home, I was seen by a real doctor, who looked at my ears, pronounced them awful looking, and prescribed another round of stronger antibiotics. Acquiring said appointment involved calling Urgent Care, making an appointment for a few hours later, and waiting less than 2 minutes after arriving at reception. I know, the last bit was pretty lucky, but it's what happened. This all happened on a Sunday, no less, when most of England is blissfully closed.