Some weeks ago – maybe it was some months ago: who knows where the time goes these days? – I received a message from my local health centre. It was a reply to a message I had sent through their ‘Ask My GP’ system, where I had asked if there was anything else they could do to help me manage my depression by way of more therapy or with additional drugs. I also asked whether there was any news in my referral for an ADHD assessment. The reply, from a GP I had never heard of, never mind even seen, said, no, there was nothing beyond a few weeks of ‘talking therapy’, I was already on the maximum level of antidepressants and the ADHD waiting list was so long I might die before I ever got assessed. Actually, I made the last bit up, but honestly it’s how I feel.
A previous message from an entirely different GP – a locum, I believe – more than hinted that the call from the ADHD people might never come and that I’d best seek a private consultation. I felt like replying, “You can put that suggestion where the sun doesn’t shine. I refuse outright to use private companies for what the NHS should provide. I didn’t fight two world wars etc etc.” But instead, I thanked said GP, who also sent me a load of links to websites like MIND, Heads Together and, presumably, if I felt really ill, the Samaritans. So, being a man of principle, I started to make enquiries of health for profit companies to see if I could swing a deal, perhaps get a discount for cash?
I have to say that everyone I called was lovely. Helpful, sympathetic, empathetic and sounding much more like a public service than a business that exists in order to make shed loads of money from ill people, which of course they all were. They explained the procedures, how assessments worked and gave me a timetable measured more in days than the ‘no idea, could take years – if you’re lucky’ NHS. I was encouraged, enthusiastic even, until, that is, I asked the inevitable question: ‘How much?’
There’s an old saying that goes along the lines of if you have to ask the price of something, you can’t afford it and that was certainly the case here. I did a ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’ calculation which suggested the specialist’s hourly rate was about £800 an hour. ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ I didn’t say to the helpful woman taking my call, before actually saying, ‘Blimey, I’ll have to check a few things and get back to you’, which was code for ‘I won’t be getting back to you.
And that was it. Since then, I’ve once again become unemployed – it’s a long story: I might tell you about it one day – and any ideas about jumping the NHS waiting lists have faded and died. I’ll just have to wait a little longer, probably when I’m being a dribbling fool in a home for the bewildered watching ‘Bargain Hunt’. This could be sooner than you might think.
The lessons learned? It’s probably not a good idea to get ill with depression. I’d recommend avoiding any kind of dysfunctional upbringing with separated parents and not going through life having to learn all the things you should have learned when you were young as you go along. This was clearly all my fault and I am taking full responsibility for it by giving my head a big wobble and pulling myself together. And, as one local wannabe broadcaster and journalist said to me, dripping with sarcasm, to ‘keep taking the tablets’.
I know where time goes. One minute you are young and you look forward and the next you are old and there’s nothing to look forward to and all you do is look back (see Facebook, though not mine).
Finally, the remaining government Covid restrictions will have to go soon. I am not the only person who is being driven clinically insane by my life standing still. But hang on: maybe if I go insane, for real, I may get the NHS treatment I really need. Every cloud and all that.
