Thanks for asking, but my abdominal hernia – referred to recently in this column – is doing extremely well, in fact it’s growing. I am getting so used to having it around that I am thinking of giving it a name. Harry the hernia or Henrietta the hernia, I just cannot decide. Last thing I would wish is to misgender my hernia. My GP made an appointment for me at the local Spire hospital where I was under the impression that, having private health insurance, I’d be in and out like a thief in the night. How wrong I was.
No notification was forthcoming so, having checked that the appointment had been made, I emailed the Spire – their preferred mode of communication – to ask not when I would hear, but how I would hear. I heard nothing at all, so I phoned to be told that my appointment was being triaged and it normally took a couple of weeks to hear. Which transpired to be complete bullshit.
But, a month into this saga (I have now had this hernia for three months and have taken it to Hong Kong, China, Turkey and Greece and am on the verge of taking it to the USA) I got a call from the Spire from ‘Stacy’. The call came, as bad luck would have it, while I was transferring data from an old to a new iPhone, so I only got the message once my new phone was up and running. I duly phoned Stacy on the local number she left only to be confronted with a choice of numbers to press and the execrable music of Coldplay to entertain me while I waited.
In the next half hour, I got through to someone who had not a clue what to do, who transferred me to someone even less clued up, then a call centre in India (I am pretty sure) and on to the HQ of Spire, and then to another woman who could not find me on the system. But then, having confirmed that I was an insurance patient she told me – despite me having pressed the appropriate button – that I was through to the wrong department. I was finally transferred to someone in Newcastle who found me on the system, only to inform me that the surgeon I had been referred to no longer worked at The Spire.
I gave up at this point. Meantime, my wife has been trying for weeks to contact our health insurance company to find out what the process is once an appointment is made. She phones the number on their brochure which claims to deal with ‘enquiries about your policy’ only to be told that it is the wrong number. When she asks if she can be transferred to someone who can help. She is told “no”. So, many thousands of pounds poorer, having made no claims on the policy, we are now in the process of cancelling the insurance policy and The Spire hospital can burn to the ground (for all I care). It’s back to the NHS to take my chances.
It’s enough to turn you to drink
Now that we have cancelled our health insurance policy, that frees up some income for some of the finer things in life, such as a good bottle of wine from time to time. Under my new alcohol-free regime between Monday to Friday, I look forward more than ever to drowning my sorrows at the weekend.
That was, until the latest evidence from the public health killjoys stopped me in my tracks. Remember the advice that the occasional glass of red wine was good for you and that it may even protect you against dementia? I really took that advice to heart and put it into practice, using increasingly larger glasses in the process so that I was sure to stick to the ‘one glass’ guideline.
Turns out, if the latest research is true, that no amount of alcohol is safe and any amount, no matter how moderate, increases your chance of developing dementia. Of course, the BBC and the WHO and the blokes at killjoy central – The Lancet – have been pushing this line for a few years now, and the recent research has been picked up by the press. Will this alter the weekend consumption of wine and beer in and around the man cave? You can be sure that it won’t. Hell, I might even start smoking again just to spite them all.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Christopher Snowdon has been debunking the ‘No Alcohol Is Safe’ claim for years…
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Roger, I feel your pain and please forgive in advance my unsolicited advice. I am under the yoke of an equally inept health care system, one currently being further tested by copious amounts of unsustainable immigration here in Canada.
As to alcohol, after turning sixty I put my glass down for the last time eight weeks ago. I figured that 45 years of moderate indulgence was enough (I got an early start) and that I would try to be as healthy as I can for the last 20 or so years, to avoid some of the misery I see my less healthy and still imbibing countrymen experiencing.
Change the frame. Alcohol is poison. It is a disinfectant. I kills your gut biome. I negatively affects sleep. It impedes fat burning. It lowers inhibitions leading to all manner of bad decision, socially and nutritionally.
If you come view it as I have, it can be seen as just another yoke to be free of and I am feeling freer and more optimistic than I ever have.
Those long living Mediterraneans would disagree and freely drink local plonk both at lunchtime and in the evenings. I don’t do the lunchtimes (well maybe beers one a month) unless in the Med, but back in blighty it’s half a bottle of cheap red every evening without exception. Somehow I doubt this source of pleasure will be the cause of regret, even if it does cause issues.
The very best place to take a hernia for treatment is the Shouldice Clinic in Toronto. Repairing hernias is all they do and they are world famous. Wherever you go do not put it off. Your life could depend on it. Seriously.
I second this opinion. I had my hernia surgery there twelve years ago (I live about an hour away from the clinic) and have had no recurring issues. The surgeon who performed the procedure told me that he had done it 23,000 times (!!) and that there is a 99.9% chance that there would be no problems, compared to about 80-85% if it is just done by a general surgeon. They do not use mesh, they use a proprietary wire that avoids all the problems associated with mesh.
Well, that was a terrific overview of the current state of health care in the UK – or should I say, a terrific overview of our (world class) health care system in the UK. It’s paradoxically consoling (but not surprising) to find that private health insurance does not protect against the same kind of incompetence and mismanagement that is found in our (world class) NHS. People who choose private health insurance, like those who choose private schools, soon find that the medics and teachers are all trained in the same place and that the difference is more about numbers, in both cases: fewer patients or pupils per consultant/teacher means results are better. Something like that.
In any event, the author’s description of his health care experience was beyond comical. I haven’t laughed so much for a while (possibly since Roger Watson’s last article) and, having briefly wondered if I could afford private health insurance, that idea has now been shelved along with my short-lived theory that I really could live without chocolate if I put my mind to it. I’ll just continue to hope and pray that my (thankfully) good health lasts a few more years and that the Grim Reaper on the night shift will take charge of my end-of-life requirements.
And just in case my opinion matters – without meaning to offend the gender-choice lobby – I’d go for Harry the Hernia if only because it’s less of a mouthful than Henrietta the Hernia.