In the old days, before the introduction of the National Health Service, people had to pay for their medical services at the time that they used them. The doctor’s bill was waiting for them; no payment – no treatment.
I can hardly pretend that the situation is now the same for me with the way in which I see the doctor in Castelldefels, but there is a similarity in the way in which entitlement is treated. I get the feeling that I am regarded as a leech on the system and they are much more concerned about how my treatment is going to be paid for then my own personal care.
I am perhaps being unfair, but the medical centre is rapidly taking over the hated mantle of Most Obnoxious & Officious from the other likely contenders for the title. And believe me they are worthy contestants and have a proven track record of mindless paper pushing futility to back up their claims to be considered.
Toni reminds me that his experience of dealing with large organizations in Great Britain was also dispiriting with the obtaining of his National Insurance number possibly the most distasteful. So I should think and remember before I castigate the Spanish authorities that my own country is not guiltless in making newcomers feel exasperation and high minded despair.
Toni has just phoned in high dudgeon as it appears that his firm has not been telling him what be loosely regarded as an approximation of the truth about the job in Madrid. It turns out that the job, which was presented to Toni as some sort of short term rescue operation is actually a full time position with employment for the next twenty two months!
Toni is returning by plane on Friday (as he told them he would) and to hell with the consequences. Employment in this area is not really a problem and he should be able to find another job if the circumstances demand with very little trouble.
Meanwhile the dealings with the medical centre grow in complexity.
Today I have seen a nurse. He was, I imagine, in his teens, but that did not stop his being quite severe about my weight and entirely dismissive of the amount of exercise that I complete each day. I fought back in the only way open to me: kiss of death to machines.
I have often found that, in spite of my well known love of gadgets, I often provoke mechanical crisis on many of the entities that I fain would love. For someone who loves computers as much as I do, I seem to have spent more than my fair share of time wallowing in self pity in front of an unresponsive screen praying for activity.
On one notable occasion I actually talked to a frozen keyboard and asked, in what I took to be a very reasonable tone of voice, if it would very kindly unfreeze itself by the time that I had made and drunk a cup of tea. It didn’t and I retired to my bedroom and wept.
Admittedly this was in the days of the notorious QL computer when a page of A4 could take up to a minute to save to its little microdrive. And I might add that I had to get the typing that I was doing done that day. I eventually went to bed at about five in the morning (after retyping everything that I had failed to save) and got up two hours later for school. Ah, happy days!
That was with a Sinclair computer; cutting edge – the affordable hybrid between a disc drive (too expensive) and a cassette drive (too slow) which allowed the illusion of top end computing for a reasonable sum of money. For those interested there is (of course) a web site about the QL at http://homepages.tesco.net/dilwyn.jones/ though now I look at the address I feel both a sense of national identity and total confusion! Not that much different then form my usual experience in front of a computer!
So, kiss of death to machines. The child nurse decided to take my blood pressure and asked me to lie down and relax. Now perhaps I am unusual, but the two actions of ‘lie down’ and ‘relax’ when set in a medical context seem to me to be oxymoronic.
I have never recovered from a particularly invasive medical examination carried out with gusto by a lady doctor when I got a job in the local steelworks. My defences were, as they say, down – as indeed were my trousers - when the lady doctor did such things that anywhere outside a doctor’s surgery would have been regarded as legally dubious and a certain invasion of an innocent lad’s privates (sic.)
So my defence was attack and the blood pressure machine failed to work. The child nurse had to rely on the old ‘pump it up by hand’ method and, lo and behold, my blood pressure is high pero solo un poco! Well done Catalonia! However, the CN (child nurse) was not to be outdone and demanded that I return tomorrow for an electrocardiograph or gram or whatever. Almost as an afterthought he gave me an injection for la gripe which I think is a good thing.
I have, at last, managed to get a prescription for my regular drugs. I did to have to pay, but only about €10 which is £7 which is hardly excessive for a month’s supply of four drugs.
Perhaps things are beginning to work out and the last bastion of bureaucratic insanity is gradually becoming more human! One can but hope.
I am beginning to wonder if Toni is going to make it to Friday with the present firm. As far as I can see they are exploiting their workers with a callous disregard for anything other than the well being of the firm. I think that Toni is being misused in the same way that an illegal immigrant would be treated; being shunted from one workplace to another with very little remuneration. I think that this job had a very definitely limited life span and he should be actively looking for a new position.
We will see.
I can hardly pretend that the situation is now the same for me with the way in which I see the doctor in Castelldefels, but there is a similarity in the way in which entitlement is treated. I get the feeling that I am regarded as a leech on the system and they are much more concerned about how my treatment is going to be paid for then my own personal care.
I am perhaps being unfair, but the medical centre is rapidly taking over the hated mantle of Most Obnoxious & Officious from the other likely contenders for the title. And believe me they are worthy contestants and have a proven track record of mindless paper pushing futility to back up their claims to be considered.
Toni reminds me that his experience of dealing with large organizations in Great Britain was also dispiriting with the obtaining of his National Insurance number possibly the most distasteful. So I should think and remember before I castigate the Spanish authorities that my own country is not guiltless in making newcomers feel exasperation and high minded despair.
Toni has just phoned in high dudgeon as it appears that his firm has not been telling him what be loosely regarded as an approximation of the truth about the job in Madrid. It turns out that the job, which was presented to Toni as some sort of short term rescue operation is actually a full time position with employment for the next twenty two months!
Toni is returning by plane on Friday (as he told them he would) and to hell with the consequences. Employment in this area is not really a problem and he should be able to find another job if the circumstances demand with very little trouble.
Meanwhile the dealings with the medical centre grow in complexity.
Today I have seen a nurse. He was, I imagine, in his teens, but that did not stop his being quite severe about my weight and entirely dismissive of the amount of exercise that I complete each day. I fought back in the only way open to me: kiss of death to machines.
I have often found that, in spite of my well known love of gadgets, I often provoke mechanical crisis on many of the entities that I fain would love. For someone who loves computers as much as I do, I seem to have spent more than my fair share of time wallowing in self pity in front of an unresponsive screen praying for activity.
On one notable occasion I actually talked to a frozen keyboard and asked, in what I took to be a very reasonable tone of voice, if it would very kindly unfreeze itself by the time that I had made and drunk a cup of tea. It didn’t and I retired to my bedroom and wept.
Admittedly this was in the days of the notorious QL computer when a page of A4 could take up to a minute to save to its little microdrive. And I might add that I had to get the typing that I was doing done that day. I eventually went to bed at about five in the morning (after retyping everything that I had failed to save) and got up two hours later for school. Ah, happy days!
That was with a Sinclair computer; cutting edge – the affordable hybrid between a disc drive (too expensive) and a cassette drive (too slow) which allowed the illusion of top end computing for a reasonable sum of money. For those interested there is (of course) a web site about the QL at http://homepages.tesco.net/dilwyn.jones/ though now I look at the address I feel both a sense of national identity and total confusion! Not that much different then form my usual experience in front of a computer!
So, kiss of death to machines. The child nurse decided to take my blood pressure and asked me to lie down and relax. Now perhaps I am unusual, but the two actions of ‘lie down’ and ‘relax’ when set in a medical context seem to me to be oxymoronic.
I have never recovered from a particularly invasive medical examination carried out with gusto by a lady doctor when I got a job in the local steelworks. My defences were, as they say, down – as indeed were my trousers - when the lady doctor did such things that anywhere outside a doctor’s surgery would have been regarded as legally dubious and a certain invasion of an innocent lad’s privates (sic.)
So my defence was attack and the blood pressure machine failed to work. The child nurse had to rely on the old ‘pump it up by hand’ method and, lo and behold, my blood pressure is high pero solo un poco! Well done Catalonia! However, the CN (child nurse) was not to be outdone and demanded that I return tomorrow for an electrocardiograph or gram or whatever. Almost as an afterthought he gave me an injection for la gripe which I think is a good thing.
I have, at last, managed to get a prescription for my regular drugs. I did to have to pay, but only about €10 which is £7 which is hardly excessive for a month’s supply of four drugs.
Perhaps things are beginning to work out and the last bastion of bureaucratic insanity is gradually becoming more human! One can but hope.
I am beginning to wonder if Toni is going to make it to Friday with the present firm. As far as I can see they are exploiting their workers with a callous disregard for anything other than the well being of the firm. I think that Toni is being misused in the same way that an illegal immigrant would be treated; being shunted from one workplace to another with very little remuneration. I think that this job had a very definitely limited life span and he should be actively looking for a new position.
We will see.
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