An Unlikely Love

I’m going to have to go back to my school days and up until my mid twenties to make sense of An Unlikely Love. In school, and out of school, I could lose myself in books and was obsessed with playing and watching football. Listened to all sorts of music. From what I remember I hadn’t really thought about the future but Mom and Dad said you should include something to do with sciences as well. So, I did and got a feeble Phys/Chem O level.

I left school and had various jobs including Butlins in Pwllheli as Plain Clothes Security, doing a couple years on a Business Studies course, Telephonist at City of London Maternity Hospital, Postman in Bournemouth. Friends from back then, I presume, would have had me down as a literary type, still playing football and spending time on the beach during the day after working as the Night Casualty Porter at Boscombe Hospital.And that job is where all the above becomes relevant. I was there for five years and during that time a few of the Path Lab technicians who were on call during the night would pop over to Casualty for a chat and a cup of tea. They would take me over to the Labs and I became fascinated by the role they played in the hospital and curing patients, although I couldn’t see myself within a laboratory.But that caused me to become really fascinated by the way the monitors in our department could measure the body’s functions. How the medical staff used them and why. I found a course at Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University) and by getting an OND in Electrical Engineering and crucially using that feeble Phys/Chem O level I was able to be accepted there to study Medical Electronics.
I'd I always pass on that advice from Mom and Dad. Leave yourself choices.I loved that course, so totally different to anything I had experienced before (and they had a great football team as well) but I’m not going to go into that because on qualifying I managed to get a post at Charing Cross Hospital when I was 31 years old. A post in the National Health Service.If I loved the course at the Lanch, then I developed a passion for the NHS. It is being part of a team dedicated to helping people. We could be Nurses, Midwives, Care Support Workers, Doctors, Healthcare Assistants, Allied Health Professionals, Admin & Clerical, Healthcare Scientists, Porters & Support Services.Here are a few quotes:
“Working in the NHS has allowed me to see both children and adults come to hospital, sometimes at their absolute worst, emotionally and physically, to within days or weeks leave looking and feeling better and grateful. I have recently been to a third world country looking at their health care system, which has made me even more appreciative of what the NHS offers us as workers and as patients. We don't truly know how lucky we are to have the NHS.”
Emily - Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation trust
“I love how patients are always put first and how the staff go above and beyond to meet their needs...The NHS makes Great Britain Great.”
Jessica – City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust
“I love working for the NHS as I think it is the most important institution we have in this country. I love helping the patients and working with my colleagues. Everyone is pulling in the same direction and it feels like one big family.”
Scott – East & North Hertfordshire NHS Trust              “The best feeling is when you make any positive difference to patients’ lives. For me, working in a non-clinical area, even the seemingly small actions of easing the administration process or making sure their referral journey runs smoothly can be greatly appreciated at what is often a vulnerable time for many.”
Geethani – South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

“I love being part of a team that works so hard and unrelentingly for people. I'm only 5 years younger than the NHS but I never take this institution for granted. It's a gift and we should treasure it.”
Lynn – Wirral University Teaching Hospital
That last point about not taking the NHS for granted and we should treasure it is why I wanted to write this article. However, it is and wasn’t a gift. People fought for it and now it is gradually being privatised. This has to stop.
As I started at the beginning of things I suppose I’d better finish with an ending of sorts.
Flirting
Flirt:
origin obscure
possibly connected to fleureter
to talk sweet nothing
the icing on my cake
of day to day work
where an ECG is drifting
or I sort out a fault
for the Sister in Charge
hoping I’ve made it fun
knowing the limits
leaving the ward with her smile
tucked in my tool case
knowing the limits
knowing it doesn’t work
when the Staff Nurse is twenty five
and I’m….well…

I’m not.
It’s time to go
the job is changing
and so am I
it’s time to try
shy and retiring.
First published in Pennine Platform, May 2012

Thanks for reading. Happy Christmas, Terry Q.
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