The jetty to heaven

I was doing rounds with my registrar and resident the other day, looked out the window and what should I see? On the lawn outside, there was a brand new, modern sculpture! The new installation has a glass and steel construction in the shape of an off-kilter helix heading up towards the sky. With its many horizontal glass panels, it would do nicely for DNA, in an abstract sort of way but I am told it represents a jetty.

One of my older, less grounded patients volunteered that this new structure was not in fact a jetty but a rocket launcher! Under his bed was where the nuclear warheads were stored. I considered his interpretation for a while, before deciding it wasn't very likely. I think it may have been the computer-timed fairy lights, which illuminate the sculpture at night that put old Joe on the wrong track.

So, while we don't have anyone to file the charts, or a visiting neurologist more than once per month, or a Holter monitor, or bone marrow aspirate needles, or a dedicated procedure room, or enough chairs for people to sit on, or anything with which to treat fungal ear infections, we do have a very lovely "jetty to heaven" to appreciate. Thanks Uncle Beattie.

The case of the disappearing pigeon hole.

Just the other day, I received an email written by admin. For argument's sake, let's call admin "Frank Burns". The email wasn't addressed to me. Rather, it had been forwarded to me by my helpful and reliable colleague and boss, Y.

The email referred to x [that's me] and it said, "X's pigeon hole is full. Please have someone open X's mail and move it on." That was all.

Well, this was all rather curious, I thought. In about mid 2004, I went, one day, to collect my mail from my pigeon hole only to find that my pigeon hole had disappeared, completely. I went to Frank Burns to find out what had happened to it (a stray worm hole perhaps?) and was told it had been 'reassigned'. (If this is starting to sound familiar to a previous post then it should.)

At the time, I asked Frank Burns how I was going to receive my mail. Now, we're not talking pen pal letters, postcards and deliveries of Cd's and DVDs from Amazon here. This mail was important and urgent correspondence concerning patients and their care and, I admit, the occasional pay sheet.

Frank Burns, suggested my mail would come directly to my outpatient clinic. Fair enough, I thought and come it most certainly did - piles of it, week after week.

Then, recently, whilst I was on holidays and involved with a rather nasty adeno-virus for a time, the mail apparently stopped. When I got back to work, what should have been a jammed to overflowing manila file was empty. Nothing. Nada. Perhaps the mail too, was now disappearing into the ether, just as my pigeon hole had done three years earlier.

Reading between the lines (which was a bit difficult as there was only one), Frank Burns' email suggested that my pigeon hole had reappeared. I was intensely curious to see if it now looked anything like a blue police telephone box emitting a loud "whaa! whaa!" noise with a flashing light on top. Sadly, it didn't but it was there, just where it had been three years before, stuffed with mail.

I replied to Frank Burns in my most polite tones. I assured that I would be happy to empty my pigeon hole regularly should someone forward to me a schedule of when it was likely to exist or alternatively provide me with a pigeon hole divining rod.

The lack of existence of a pigeon hole might not be a big deal to some. (It was a big deal to my patients whose correspondence was missing in action, let me tell you). However, it is yet another symptom of the malevolence that is Uncle Beattie.

It is said that for a community of any sort to work well, there needs to be a careful balance between government, governance and the governed. For instance, in Iraq, there is a powerful government in the form of George Dubbelya, no governance because he blew it all up and the huge uncared for, un-governed masses.

In Q Health, we have a domineering Uncle Beattie, whom I'm sure, rues the day his mother failed to call him George Dubbelya, a morbidly obese, philosophically bankrupt bureaucracy and then the sick people and the people who care for them.

And it's not just the balance between the three, it's the whole culture of the structure, from Beattie's bald head to the sole of my shoe, that's important.

If I were to say to Frank Burns, "Can you see why it might be important for me to know when my mail is going to a pigeon hole instead of to my clinic?", Frank Burns would say, "No."

If I were to say,"Would it be a polite thing to call me on my mobile phone and tell me I have been re-assigned a pigeon hole?", Frank Burns would say, "The correct procedure was to send an email to your supervisor."

If I said, "Do you care what happens to my patients?", Frank Burns would say, "They're not patients, they're clients."

Frank Burns wouldn't be lying or be being obtuse. It is simply that admin doesn't know and doesn't have the ability to think there might be a better way. Uncle Beattie could change that but he doesn't want to and he won't.