alexist

It's been 2.5 weeks and still no call from the midwife. So this morning I rang Barnet Hospital antenatal clinic. blah blah blah, something about high numbers of people calling, "telephone lines will only be open for enquiries from 14:00 to 16:30".

Can't I just deal with somewhere else? Oh wait, no... because thanks to our fantastic government, this is the ONLY HOSPITAL IN THE BOROUGH!!! (Never mind that Barnet is one of the most populous boroughs in London.)

Oh, and our trust (Barnet & Chase Farm Hospitals) is in so much debt that they keep coming up with insane ideas:

1) Consolidate all services, so they will be provided at either Barnet or Chase Farm, not both. This would include maternity. Anyone else think Barnet would not be able to cope with this? Local papers have pointed out that it is near impossible to get to Chase Farm Hospital from most of the borough of Barnet.

2) Close Chase Farm A&E (that's ER to Americans). Barnet already sees twice as many patients as it's rated for (and accordingly has not met the "98% seen within 4 hours" target. Waits at Barnet A&E are some of the longest in London.) Some patients would go to the North Middlesex in Edmonton, but a lot would end up at Barnet. Oh, and the government got rid of Edgware A&E, which is why Barnet is so overloaded.

Bah. OK, at least I've ranted, it makes me feel better. :)

I should really be annoyed at politicians, not the hospital, because they fucked the situation up so royally.

There used to be 2 general hospitals in Barnet: Barnet and Edgware. In the mid-90s, the Tories decided that the NHS couldn't sustain 2 hospitals in the area. They decided to close Barnet, which is at the edge of the borough, while Edgware is better served by public transport. There were protests, and Barnet was saved. So Edgware had to go. Meanwhile, Barnet needed to be completely rebuilt. The first part opened in 1997, and was paid for by the public; the rest was built on a New Labour-devised PFI scheme and opened in 2003. (Here goes a tinge of politics: Barnet hospital is in safe Tory green belt, Edgware near a bunch of Labour-voting council estates.)

Labour won Hendon in 1997 on a promise to "save Edgware Hospital". They then decided to downgrade it to a community hospital. It's now a showpiece and has been beautifully rebuilt... but has no A&E and only does midwife delivery, among other things. (I'll give the MP credit, he does try, but the decisions were all made above his head.)

Meanwhile, Barnet Hospital was rebuilt--with fewer beds than the facilities it replaced. End result: a borough of 326,000 people is served by one 459 bed hospital with a giant mountain of debt.

I was in a fruit mood at Waitrose yesterday, but nothing struck me--the stock levels weren't great to begin with. The strawberries were Elsanta, the greengages aren't in yet, and I don't like eating raspberries plain. Checked a few melons, not ripe. Gave up and thought I'd have to make do with clementines and bananas--not very summery.

When we got to the checkout, Neil said "sure you haven't forgotten anything?" and I realised, "Garlic!" So I went back to produce, and I happened to pass some more melons being put out, with a "Perfectly Ripe" label. Pick one up, press, sniff, ooh!

Eating half now (it's a Charentais) and it is nice and sweet and yummy. Yay! I don't often buy melon because I feel like it's a waste since I'm the only one who eats it, and it can be so hit and miss--even if it's soft at the bottom and smells ripe, it isn't always. (And the full slip check doesn't work on some melons--Charentais and European cantaloupes [North American ones are a different subspecies of muskmelon; European ones aren't netted] have a little stem end even when they're picked ripe.)

For me, melons mean summer. My grandmother used to cut them up and have them ready in the house for when we came in from the pool. There aren't many things as refreshing as cold melon on a hot day.

Do not piss off the pregnant woman!

(Funny, if I think about it I don't feel exceptionally emotional or out of whack, but I'm even more fuelled by petty rage than usual. Oh, and I'm crying at the drop of a hat. How the hell did I cry at ER?!)

Ring antenatal clinic, explain problem. "Oh, you've got the wrong number, you need to ring the community midwives". She gives me the number.

I ring.

After searching through my name 3 ways (as usual, they can't cope with double barrelled without a hyphen) it emerges that Barnet Hospital has no record of me, despite the fact that they knew enough about me to schedule not one but 2 scans. It would seem that the Antenatal Clinic never bothered telling the Community Midwife Centre about me.

She took all my details and promised to ring back.

Just tried booking NCT (antenatal) classes. Good thing I'm doing it early; they're not taking bookings for babies being born before 1 December. Unfortunately, the woman's away this week, so I shall have to ring back.

(My trust in Barnet hospital is low right now, so I'm stumping up £150 and going private.)