Siobhan O’Donnell on the NHS waiting list, a pensioner’s knee and the long, long queue that has become London’s most reliable gig
Saturday 10 October, 11.50am, a GP waiting room in East London, row of plastic chairs, a poster about hand washing and a clock that is wrong in a consistent way.
Dear Diary. I am in the waiting room with a sore wrist, which I got from playing a bass guitar the size of a canoe, and I have been told to expect a wait. The wait is part of the experience, like the encore at a gig or the hangover after one. It is also the subject of the latest piece on our own site, which carries the headline Government Guarantees Free Healthcare, Patients Guaranteed Something to Do While Waiting. The summary describes it as satire on NHS waiting lists, using a pensioner character’s wait for knee surgery to contrast political promises with limited capacity. I read it on my phone while the receptionist called a name that was not mine, and then another that was not mine, and then, I am fairly sure, a name of someone who left in 2019.
The Waiting Room as a Venue
I have been to worse venues. This one has seating, heating and a coffee machine that is out of order, which is the same as a few places I played in my twenties. The acoustics are poor but the audience is captive, which is every promoter’s dream.
The people in the room form a kind of scene. There is a man in his sixties doing a crossword with the focus of a surgeon. There is a woman with a toddler who has discovered that a plastic chair makes an excellent drum. And there is me, in a leather jacket, trying to look like a person who has had a hard life and not like a person who has a sore wrist from showing off.
What the Satire Is Really About
It would be easy to make the joke about the staff, but that would be wrong and also unkind, since the people on the other side of the desk are doing a job under conditions most of us would run away from. The joke is about the promise, not the people. A politician says free at the point of use, and everyone claps, because that is the best idea this country ever had. Then the capacity is a different matter, and the pensioner is told to be patient, and patience is a currency we pay in constantly and are never repaid.
Our archive has been tracking this for a while. There is the report that the NHS waiting list has reached a historic milestone, a headline which hopes you will read milestone as good news. There is the claim that the waiting list is now visible from space, which at least gives astronauts something to look at. And there is the suggestion that the waiting list could elect its own mayor, on the grounds that it has the population of a city and the same hopes of being heard.
Things To Do While Waiting
If the Government has guaranteed us something to do, I thought I should help with a list. I wrote this in the margin of a leaflet about cholesterol.
One. Learn a chord. You can do this silently by pressing your fingers on your thigh. It does not sound good, but neither did my first band.
Two. Read every poster in the room. I now know more about hand washing than the people who wrote the poster.
Three. Count the chairs. There are twenty-two. Fourteen of them have a sticky patch. I did not investigate.
Four. Make a friend. The crossword man has told me a seven-letter word for patience. I will not repeat it here, as he asked me not to.
Five. Call your mother. She will say something about wrists and bass guitars and the sensible career you could have had.
A Serious Paragraph, Briefly
I should say, because it is true, that waiting lists are not a joke to the people who are on them. A wait for an operation can mean pain, worry and a life on hold. I do not wish to make light of it, and the satire does not either. Its job is to look at the distance between the promise and the reality and point at it, so that nobody can say they were not shown. I have no solution. I do know that a country which loves its health service should say so by funding it, and that is a view I hold in a loud, simple way with no expertise whatsoever.
For a wider look at how humour deals with the health service, our NHS satire guide is the proper place. If you want something lighter, The Daily Squib has a way with a waiting room, and Bohiney Magazine reports on the American version of the same problem, which comes with a bill.
Result
1.15pm. The receptionist called my name. I stood up, did a small bow to the room, and the toddler applauded. My wrist is fine. It is probably just muscle strain, I was told, which I take as a compliment to the bass.
On the walk home I passed a pharmacy, a chip shop and a mural of a cat. London is still the best waiting room in the world, if you look up from your phone.
Night, Diary. Rest the wrist, free the queue and leave the chairs as you found them.
SOURCE: bohiney.com
