By Lee

I moved out of Birmingham, to another district in the Midlands two weeks before the first lockdown, came into effect due to Covid – 19. 

A week into lockdown, I tried to register myself at a local GP practice. Having three practices within 15 minutes walking distance, I thought this would be achievable. No I was so wrong. All the practices I phoned informed me they weren’t taking on any new patients, during lockdown. So I had to keep my self registered with a doctor’s surgery in Birmingham.

This meant that every time I required a repeat prescription for my medication, I firstly had to have a phone consultation with a doctor from the surgery due to me being out of their local area. It would have taken me two hours, and three buses each way, to have attended the surgery in person, which wasn’t possible due to the pandemic lockdown.

I also had the same problems registering myself with a local dentist. During lockdown I was having in a lot of pain with two of my teeth, constant toothache. After again trying to register with a local dentist, and again being told they were not taking on any new patients at the moment, I was advised to attend the dental hospital in Birmingham if I needed to be seen by specialist. This I was unable to do due to lack of financial difficulties.

Enduring the pain and discomfort for a further couple of days, I could not endure any more. I ended up removing both the teeth myself.

Also during the fist lockdown, I was admitted to hospital having had to phone the emergency services. The care over the six days that I spent in hospital was excellent.

The NHS do an amazing job, and I thank them for all the care that I received whilst under their care. The main thing I found really hard, whilst I was in hospital, was the loneliness not being able to have any family or friend’s visit.

I have since been able to register myself with a local doctors surgery and also with a local dentist practice.

As we head into another period of lockdown, I can only hope that that the spread of Covid – 19 can some how be contained, and eventually we can all begin to get some kind of normality back into all our lives.

Let’s hope that 2021 will be a far less difficult year.