Just back from a holiday in Brittany (picture to left) and, well, here at last is a sort of conclusive date for CI implantation surgery. It's, erm, sometime in September, or October...or maybe November.
Now I say this not to belittle or descry the good people at the RNTNE Hospital - they are terrific people, doing a fantastic job - but to point out something very important about the nature of health care, at least in Britain and in the National Health Service. The NHS is a remarkable institution, making health care available free at the point of use for all in this country now for 60 years; it is a great thing, cumbersome at times, and liable to being 'experimented upon' by politicians, but overall - as Sellar and Yeatman said - a "good thing".
But what it is not good at doing - and is actively trying to get better at - is managing patients as individuals and seeking their welfare first and exclusively. Trusts (the organisations that run our NHS) have to balance patient needs and patient interests on the one hand with resourcing issues on the other after all. Now it is evidently easier to do that by finding a slot for a CI operation rather than deciding on one with the patient. After all, put simply, skilled CI implantation surgeons are not that thick on the ground, whereas deaf people in need to a CI... The NHS is going to struggle to meet the aspiration our current crop of leaders have for 'personalised health care' and I wonder whether it isn't actually too much to ask of it.
No, I don't mean that it is too much to ask of the NHS to ensure that patients are involved in decisions about treatment and care, and no I don't mean that it is too much to ask that patients get to express a preference about where they are treated, when they are treated and by whom.
It is too much to ask, though, that the NHS should invariably offer the kind of open-ended commitment the government seems to be suggesting may possible - that I can have my CI implantation surgery on October 12th at 2.30pm, done by Professor X, possibly even under lights provided by the XYZ Corporation...
For all of those reasons, my reaction to the broad window timing for my own CI implantation is sympathetic and philosophical. After all, I am getting excellent care, the promise of a high quality team in the operation and implantation - and all at no cost.
