Following a conversation last week with natural story teller Steve, he talks about the sense of achievement generated by face to face G.P appointments that you don’t get from phone consultations. In fact phone consultations leave you with a gnawing sense of anxiety that remains unresolved, snowballing from one appointment to the next. He sees that for some people at least, remote appointments can be a positive thing and hopes that we will be given the choice going forward. Mat Amp [Project Coordinator]

My name’s Steve, and it’s the 1st of July. So, yeah, I had a discussion, a chat today with someone. We were talking about the difference in accessing the doctors now as it was prior to the pandemic, you know, the anxiety. I’m just wondering whether people could relate to what me and my colleague was discussing .

I was basically saying it’s very different now. And I think some think some of the changes are going to stay, aren’t they? I don’t know about you but it’s quite difficult to get an appointment, let alone to actually go and physically see the doctor. That’s a massive change. I mean, my doctors, you have to phone up at eight o’clock and it’s it’s like going to war with the phone, basically. Got to get that doctor’s appointment. I don’t know where that …an enormous amount of pressure I feel. This is not seeing the doctor, this is just getting through to a receptionist. Nothing to do with the doctors at this stage.

You’re praying that annoying tone turns to a ring tone, when it does get a little spark of happiness. It’s like YAAAAY I’ve finally got through, but you’re not even started, you’ve not started the fight to get to the doctor. I have to… I’m going to lie mode which worryingly I’m perfectly capable of doing – regularly. Anyway, so if I’m now through to the receptionist, it’s now about twenty past 8. So I’ve been on the phone twenty minutes listening to the engaged tone. if you’ve got 20 minutes to spare try it, experience it – It’s awful. Gets through, I digress, sorry about that. You finally get through [to a receptionist].

And the reason I’m going to the doctor’s regularly in the pandemic was for me prescription, me medication. I’m not going to leave it to chance that he’ll do a repeat and then I go to skip in to the chemist on tablet day, only to be told there is no prescription here Mr. Walker. Oh, no, It’s soul destroying that so I don’t leave any of that stuff to chance. It’s my responsibility to do what’s necessary, which I do.

So I would say to the receptionist, I need an appointment and then I’ll make something up.. If I don’t she will just say I’ll put a repeat in. So I’m lying straight away now. She knows I’m lying because I do this every time. This dance is done, this tango of falseness is done every fortnight. Same time, same place, ten bob in the jukebox. And off we go, lying to each other very comfortably. Yeah. And there is something up with my back, me head, my anxiety, which is true because I’m very anxious at this point because I’m on the phone to the receptionist. So she’ll say, OK, Mr. Walker, the doctor will ring you back sometime today.

Tis it this number. So we check the number and you’re on pins then we literally.. well, I am. I’m on pins. Please phone.. And when he phones… I’m going to say this, then he’ll say that, then I’m going to say this. But what if he says that. Oh golly, I can’t say this, what if he says the other. UWWWWWW Oh, what if he says this, what if he say that, what if he throws in another. Oh, my God, what am I going to do? That’s utter madness and that utter utter utter madness goes on until the the phone rings.

That Indecisive, the what ifs, he throws another in and I’ve just and I’ve only got a this for his that, I’m fucked. Think about that – what the hell does any of it mean? Because it’s all based on a lie, which is phenomenal. Isn’t it amazing when you think about it anyway? What I’m saying is that that side of it and he’ll finally phone and, you know, hopefully I’ll get the script. I ain’t leaving with out it and that brings me to my next point.

And that brings me to my next point – when it’s face to face, there’s a power shift, I feel, I might have this wrong, I doubt it, I feel there’s a power shift because when you go to the doctors in person, he can see me, it might be desperation, it might be ridiculous ham, it might be real. My point is he can see and I can see him and something happens in that energy because you read and you feed of each other’s energy because you read and you feed off each other’s energy and you read how the situation is going to play out, you know, to a beneficial outcome for both of you. All I want is my script. All he wants is, oh, you know, if he’s a good doctor he wants me to get well and that’s amazing. And if he’s a bad doctor he wants me out of his office.

Any outcome, as long as I get that script is a chance that all of them outcomes will happen. So all them, what ifs and others and this is a that’s in my head, they never play out. But I still put myself through the anxiety loop every week, every fortnight. Where if you’re going to see the doctor and something happens and you know what is not even just in the doctor’s surgery? My point to all this is you seeing other people, you’ve got that energy. My Doctor is only about 90 seconds up the road. I walk through a parade of shops where people know me. So  you see the odd person on the way to the doctors, you know, you shout things to them and whatever it is.

And then when you’ve been to the doctor and you come out and when I’m coming home and I walk through that door, I’ve achieved something. Because at the start of all this, I’m thinking Oh God, the last thing I want to do is go out, but I’ve got to get that script because I’m riddled with anxiety and nothing good ever follows the word riddled, never. No one ever says I was riddled with happiness, do they, they just don’t. I faced anxiety, I challenged myself, I’ve done it, and when I’m coming back in, yeah, there’s that spark of happiness again and it’s powerful. It’s powerful, I believe, because you’re giving yourself evidence that you can face life. It might only be a trivial thing to the man next door. Well, hello. I’m not the man next door. Probably don’t like each other. Whatever it is, he’s next door. It’s not trivial to me. And I’ve done it. I’ve achieved it.

But that’s been taken away, you know. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I think, you know, some of these changes, obviously, some of them will be for the better, but it depends how you use them. But I just hope that we get like, you know, you can have an option for. ‘Do you want your prescription sent to the chemist or would you like to go and pick it up, you know, all that stuff? Well, hopefully they’ll give us an option, where would you like a digital appointment where you do it through a portal, you know. Which, you know, no i don’t, I  what a personal appointment, me personally, well, there you go..

Yeah, I just thought I’d share that little tale, I’m just trying to think of an anecdote. My life is a fucking anecdote. Well, anyway, thank you.