It was Groucho Marx who said: ‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.’ I felt a bit like that when my local health centre contacted me to give me the good news that my adult ADHD referral, already subject to a waiting list of over two years, was now ‘on hold’, which is to say I have to wait before I can formally wait. Having spent a lifetime rejecting the very idea of seeking out private treatment, or showing contempt for others who had gone down the private route, I decided to go through the private sector in order to obtain an assessment and then a diagnosis. It hasn’t gone well.
I have written before how I believe that the NHS is the greatest emergency service in the world but it’s shit at a lot of things that are not regarded as urgent. If you need life-saving treatment, you will get it, free at the point of delivery. No queueing, no ifs nor buts. You’ll get put back together again. Anything regarded by the NHS (the government, really) as not urgent and you’ll have to wait. “In severe pain? Just wait over there, dear, and take these tablets in the meantime. Oh, it’s mental health. That’s different. That’s not really being ill at all. Snap out of it, pull yourself together and if you live long enough, we might fit you in. Now don’t call us, we’ll call you. Possibly.”
Anyway, I contacted a variety of local private health providers to see what they had to offer. Each wrote polite and business-like replies, which went along the lines of: “Thanks for contacting us. Yes, we can see you whenever you fancy. The price will be…” and that was where my interest ended. The very cheapest assessment would set me back £750, which I don’t have. The dearest was £2100 plus a kidney. I made up the last bit, as you might imagine, but they might as well have said that.
This is my life, I suppose. The working class boy from Briz who, like Seasick Steve, started out with nothing and I’ve still got most of it left. I’ve had 50 long years of mental ill-health which might, just might, be explained by undiagnosed ADHD. But only people with money are allowed to be assessed and I’m not allowed to be assessed.
At least I’ve got my principles back again. I didn’t have to fork out for private health because I didn’t have enough money and now I’ll stay with the NHS route. I hope that I’ll get diagnosed before I die but knowing my luck – and the only luck I get with the NHS is bad luck, otherwise I wouldn’t get any luck at all – my ashes will be drifting down the Bristol Channel with all the other dead Johansens.
I suppose it’s my fault for not reading the sign above the door at all the private health companies I contacted. No riff raff.
