Making a Difference

On Sunday the service was very powerful - it felt good to be a part of it. Afterwards I manned the library desk and was pleased to respond to some book requests and to see people helping themselves to the Christian magazines and devotionals I'd made available.

In the afternoon Vic followed me over the allotments on his motorbike and we measured up so that I can get down to making a planting plan, then he rode off into the sunshine and I came home to get the dinner. By evening the headache I'd been trying to ignore had really moved in - last time that happened I went to the evening prayer meeting and the headache went away. This time I took a long soak in the bath and it eased off for a while but came back with a vengeance when I went to bed early. Finally I resorted to taking a tablet and felt much better this morning.

I walked into town and met up with June, introducing her to the group of friends I occasionally meet with on a Monday morning. On the way home I pass the little tea-room run by Age Concern on behalf of the elderly - for a long while I've been considering volunteering to help so I came home and tracked down the 'Do It' website and put in an application.

Through the day the headache has been building again and as it's Monday dance club tonight, I'll probably take another tablet before I go.

As to 'making a difference', the subject of this post: I just received an email from one of the friends who was there this morning. I've been treated for mental health issues off and on for about 12 years now. For the first 9 or 10 years my routine outpatient appointments with the psychiatrist were frequently covered by his junior - often a different one each time. I found it frustrating that each new doctor I saw would take the same 'history' down and file it away, apparently never to be read. Talking to other mental health service users, I was not alone in finding that frustrating. Then in the past few years the Government has directed the NHS to become more responsive to its customers. Things began to change for the better, and I learned that I could ask to change to a different psychiatrist. I was switched to Dr P_, a highly competent female psychiatrist, who made herself personally available for almost every appointment, and for the ones that she wasn't able to attend personally, she made sure that her deputy was another female doctor who knew me and was fully briefed. It was so much better!

Then the local mental health trust decided to reorganise and Dr P_ was moved across to deal solely with inpatients, and her outpatient list was switched to another female psych, Dr H_. I had my first appointment with Dr H_ back before Christmas, and had anticipated that Dr P_ would have given her a handover on each patient, so was disappointed to discover this was not the case. Dr H_ sat with the large file in front of her containing (presumably) every one of those histories faithfully recorded by every other doctor I've ever had my mental health assessed by ... and began to take my history. I took a deep breath and explained that for the sake of myself and all her other patients, we really don't find it helpful having to regularly rehearse the darkest periods of our life, that having to do so can have a negative impact on mental health, and that we would find it so much more helpful if the doctor could acquaint herself with the file before seeing us. She took it well.

I mentioned earlier the email from a friend ... she saw Dr H_ for the first time today, and Dr H_ said, "I won't ask you to go through your whole history as that would be unhelpful for you". Result!

Would you like to make a difference? A little bit of encouragment wouldn't go amiss - please feel free to leave a comment.