The Bleeding Obvious: Why Lancing’s GP Surgery Should Be Renamed Poundland Row
How an 88-year-old man bled all over the NHS’s dignity while New Pond Row doctors sharpened their pencils!
Yesterday, as I sat scrolling through images of croissants I’ll never be able to eat and watching my cat Theo rearrange himself like an angry throw cushion, the phone rang. It was my elderly father, voice trembling, not from age but from fury.
Now before I go on, let me remind you that this is a man born in the same year as Clint Eastwood, Princess Margaret and Warren Buffett. A year when black-and-white telly was considered futuristic and a sliced loaf was cutting-edge tech. He’s 88, living alone, slightly deaf, proudly independent and able to make a bacon sandwich while listening to the shipping forecast on medium wave. Or at least, he was until he attempted to open a tin of soup and ended up nearly performing a DIY amputation.
With blood pouring from his hand like a scene from Kill Bill; Revenge of the Tomatoes; he did what any British pensioner would do. He wrapped it in a tea towel, told no one, and drove himself to the doctors. His GP practice? None other than New Pond Row in Lancing; an institution so medically ineffective it makes Dr Google look like a Nobel Prize-winning consultant.
Let’s call them No Point Row. Or Not-a-Chance Row. Or perhaps just Poundland General Practice; where the only thing they prescribe is paracetamol and a sense of abandonment!
Now to be fair, my father had done all the right things. He drove himself there despite the fact most 88-year-olds get breathless just opening a yoghurt. He found a parking space, a miracle in itself and walked in dripping blood like an extra from Casualty Live! And what did they do?
They turned him away. Yes, they turned him away!
That’s right. A man clutching his own wrist in a tea towel, bleeding because of the blood thinners they prescribed him, was refused help at his own GP surgery. Why? Because they said, he didn’t have an appointment. What if he had gone away and collapsed or worse?
Let that sink in. He is elderly and bleeding!!
An elderly man, actively haemorrhaging, was told to bugger off and call 111; presumably after he’d fitted himself with a tourniquet made from leftover tinsel or a loo roll.
This is the same practice, by the way, that refuses to review his medication, never lets him speak or meet an actual doctor and once offered him a telephone appointment three weeks after the date had already passed; like some sort of NHS time-travel experiment gone wrong. Honestly, I’ve seen more medical initiative from a baked potato.
So what did he do? He drove himself again, this time to Worthing Hospital. Found another parking space (at this point the man’s luck was bordering on divine), paid more for parking than most people’s mobile contracts and walked slowly into A&E… Imagine a scene from Platoon…
Within minutes he was seen, treated and believe it or not, fed. That’s right. They gave him an egg mayo sandwich and a drink. Yes, it took four hours, but when you’re retired, desperate and have just been booted out of your own GP surgery like a nuisance with a nosebleed, it felt almost… pleasant. Like a spa day, but with more gauze and fewer cucumbers. A man who left Not-a-Chance Row with blood running down his elbow got sandwiches, care, compassion and a follow-up appointment. They even told him to lodge a formal complaint about the GP practice.
So he drove home, exhausted, shaken and alone, like a contestant on The Great British Stitch-Off. This is a man who paid into the system for decades. Who worked, contributed, built the post-war economy and now all he wants is a GP who won’t treat him like expired yoghurt.
Wes Streeting, are you paying attention? Is this what the modern NHS has come to? Refusing bleeding pensioners help unless they’ve pre-booked their haemorrhage six months in advance?
It’s not just a scandal. It’s a slap in the face to every older person who depends on the NHS. We always say, never forget the people who built this country. Yet here we are, actively ignoring them while we clap for TikTok medics in Crocs.
My first ever regular column was for the Evening Argus in Brighton, called something like ‘Online with me’… about the internet… Perhaps it’s time I pitched this one to them too. Because maybe, just maybe, someone will finally hold New Pond Row accountable for turning away the people who need them most.
My dad’s resting now, with a stitched-up hand and a sense of betrayal that no tea towel can cover.
To the Sharon and all the staff at Worthing Hospital; thank you.
To New Pond Row?
Do us all a favour. Shut the doors, apologise and hand your stethoscopes to someone who gives a damn!
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
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