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Thursday, August 13, 2009

I've spent all day today at the Mile Oak Medical Centre. It's one of my favourite places to work, mainly because the consulting room I use has an en-suite kitchen with my own private kettle. I don't ask for much in life, so the ability to make tea between patients just about does it for me. Although to be honest, I don't always need a kettle to reach boiling point at work.

Anyhoo, I was wandering around behind reception this afternoon, checking my appointment list and wondering why all my patients seemed to be hiding in the toilet, when a little old lady turned up and said she'd brought in a load of magazines for the waiting room. The receptionist told her how kind she was. Before adding that they can't accept any of them due to swine flu. I presume they don't want to spread panic via sensationalist tabloid articles. Of course it's just possible that they see magazines as an infection risk, but frankly if glossy literature spreads swine flu, the government shouldn't be sending everyone a leaflet.

But on the subject of odd policies, I popped into the West Hove branch of Sainsbury's at lunchtime, where the bloke on the checkout kindly informed me of their new rules on carrier bags. Apparently if you ask for them, you can have as many as you like, but if you don't ask, they're not not allowed to offer. Which results in the situation I witnessed at the checkout, where a bemused pensioner with no bags stared helplessly at his shopping hurtling towards him down the conveyor belt, and wondered why the young man on the till was doing nothing to help. As the boy eventually explained to us both, "If you don't mention bags, we're not allowed to". I'm like that with my patients' eye sockets.

As for tomorrow, I'm back at Horsham Hospital. And after last time, I'm taking my autograph book.

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