I am so exhausted by how difficult it is to get medical treatment in the UK when needed. I recently had foot surgery, at the moment I’m having my surgical dressings changed by the practice nurse twice a week. She cleans the wounds, puts an iodine patch on to help clear the infection, and redresses them. While the treatment is free on the NHS, the dressings aren’t, I have to pay for those. So much for the NHS being “free at the point of delivery.” I had to buy a box to take home too, for when the wounds are no longer so bad and I start to change them myself at home.

My next appointment for a dressing change is on Thursday but today one of the dressings came off. The wound it was covering is deep, oozing blood and orange/yellow fluid, and was totally exposed. I called the GP surgery and explained the situation and asked for a sooner appointment to get it changed. They said there are no appointments and the nurse is too busy to see me, I’ll have to phone in the morning and see if I can get one. Appointments are released at 8.30am, but they all get snapped up at once. So many people need an appointment that at 8.30 everyone starts phoning or turning up in person and always, by the time I get through, they’re all gone. The only reason I have the twice weekly appointments I do is because they’re post-surgical appointments that were booked in advance. So I’ll try but I know there’s a 0.0001% chance of me being able to get an appointment sooner than Thursday.

So, I dressed the wound myself with one from the pack I had to buy. I don’t have iodine patches to put on it, and I can’t do it in a 100% sterile way like the nurse can. The surgical wounds already got so infected that about 9 days ago I ended up having to go to the emergency department (because, again, only way to get seen as the GP practice said they had no appointments and wouldn’t squeeze me in.) I’m worried it’ll get infected again now, and the dressing I’ve done isn’t very comfortable, I’m worried it might be too tight but I had to wrap micropore around it to hold it in place.

It makes me so angry when I see British people bragging to Americans and other nationalities about the NHS. It’s shit. Almost impossible to get an appointment and having to pay for your own damn bandages. And all the cost-saving measures they make only end up costing more in the long run.