"A tragic death due to over demand and under capacity"

You can be at the bottom but not on zero hours contracts and living in a slum.
My husband was an architect. It takes seven years to train, like a doctor.
You've obviously got a very rich friend if she can afford to buy her son a house in a nice part of town. I hope she lives in a nice house herself.

ethel You seem to be saying that young professionals should experience life at the bottom, so that when they are faced with a patient or client with a particular postcode they can make certain assumptions about them.
Good clinicians do not judge their patients; they listen to them, hear what they are saying, treat them and try to understand them as individuals and empathise with them.
Patients who live in deprived areas are not all the same, with the same outlook on life and the same opinions.
Nor are people in middle-class areas.

I'm sorry that you have obviously been very unfortunate in all the doctors and nurses you have come across in your life.
I certainly don't recognise your descriptions.

Its difficult to get across what I am trying to say. I think that if someone has come from a privileged background they might not understand the fears/problems/social deprivations that someone might face who is not so well off.
Example ; I had a health visitor who came to my house to check DD progress at a particular milestone, I happened to say she was very naughty, the HV said to apply 'time out', which in the 90s was a popular means of punishment for naughty children. She explained I must put her in a room alone for just a few minutes until the tantrum expired. OK. I asked which room, 'oh put her in the dining room', I explained I did not have a dining room, 'then put her in the kitchen', I refused knowing that in the kitchen my DD could do untold damage where there were hot taps, a hot hob etc. The HV then suggested put her in the hall but as the hall led to the kitchen and bathroom that was a no no too. This suggests to me that the HV was a lady who assumes that everyone had nice spare spaces such as a dining room or rooms that had door handles that worked, my door handles were all loose and every door opened at a push. I tried putting DD in her bedroom but she insisted on throwing pictures, toys, bedding down on my head, The HV gave up after that. The time out theory does not work in a grotty council house.
This HV had obviously no real life experience

As I said, ethel, my husband was an architect. Most council houses were not grotty. They were designed to Parker Morris standards which gave tenants more room per occupant than private housing. Even flats were built to the same standards up until Thatcher came in and started selling them off.
We did live in council houses for a year, six months in Peterborough, and six months on Bransholme estate in Hull. Both houses had more room than the equivalent private house in the same area. The reason we moved then was because council housing was for those who could not afford to buy, and we could afford to buy.
Loose door handles are a problem of the tenant who lives in the house. As a private householder, any loose door handles would have to be fixed by my husband or, now, by myself.
I can use a screwdriver as well as anyone. I can replace door handles if need be. Why could you not do so?

A lot of the council houses I used to visit as a GP were very spacious, as was my grand mothers's.
The OAP bungalows, on the other hand were very cramped.

etheltbags, have you ever been in a house occupied by medical students? If you had, you'd know that many of them know exactly what slumming it is. The medical student houses I've been in (including the one my brother lived in) have been, in a word, squalid. I think you are making too many assumptions.

One student house my eldest son lived in was condemned by the council so the owner paid the students to move out rather than make the improvements.

That was in Jesmond, posh Newcastle.

Quite Bags
Also my pre registration year I worked a 7 day week with two nights off and 1 1/2 days alternate weekends. I spent my time off asleep. For this I was paid the magnificent sum of £800 pa. Accommodation was a tiny room with a 2' 6" wide single bed, a chair and a wardrobe. This was in an old workhouse and we had shared washing, toilet and bathing facilities.
There was no overtime or time off in lieu. You just worked as long was needed, no agreed working hours.

My council house(not the one I bought) was grotty. durhamjen, we were not allowed to do any repairs so I just got used to things being broken as the council took so long to fix small items. My late DH was a maintainence engineer and could fix anything he would have done so but it just wasn't allowed.
As for room, there wasn't room to swing a cat. we had 2 up 2down, no dining room, playrooms etc. Our living room was where we ate, watched tv, played and did all our leisure activities. It was impossible to read if DH was watching tv etc. The kitchen was so narrow you could touch both sides with arms open. There were not enough cupboards, no walk in cupboards, brooms, vacuum, tins paint, chemical were piled up in the hallway. The bathroom was squashed under the stairs in a cupboard sized room with the low roof a hazard. The whole house was black with mildew. The council could not fix that. The bedrooms were decent sized but no storage, I had knitting, quilts making, fretwork, model making stuff piled on the floor and in DD room toys were just everywhere.
The worst bit was every room leading into another, just no privacy.
The huge garden was a jungle and the council refused to clear it so it took ages to get a lawn laid and borders made. I understand why so many people just neglect their council houses. We also had a car so car items were laid on the floor in the kitchen too.

Doesn't everyone end up with a car cylinder block on their kitchen table?

The thing I am noticing about doctors (posh or not posh) is that they are all so young
Like policemen.

Or is it just that I am getting older? All the GPs my age or even just a bit younger in our practice - the ones who know us - have retired or are retiring.

We bought the Council house we have lived in for ten years, because it was so spacious as compared to say the Victorian conversions in our area in a similar price range.

There are young mums with babies in the flats in the Council building across from our home, and I am amazed at the constant stream of workmen that are in and out of their flats doing up kitchens, bathrooms, painting and decorating and so on.

The assumption that Council = grotty is annoying. I've never had such a lovely kitchen for example as I have in this house. Our neighbours are great (apart from one, but you'd get that anywhere).

I see the workmen in every house near me nowadays, maybe they have improved their performance but I certainly did not get much in the way of repairs. My kitchen in the house I now live in was 30 years old when the council replaced them for my neighbours I had bought the house so I left it till I could afford it. The fences are run down and people end up with pushing things like baby gates and odd bits of wood to prop them up. I have had a section of my fence done but it will take years to do all of it.
Not all council houses are grotty, many are well looked after but with the new rules where they are now on year long contracts many people just don't bother if they are to move on.
Several years ago the council modernised the one I used to live in, starting on 15th DEcember, they stripped the kitchen and bathrooms, then systematically sent workmen to do what was needed. I spend xmas with a pile of unfinished cupboards and ate my xmas dinner sitting on a bag of cement, there was a hole in the wall and the electric went off with a bang on xmas eve ruining my turkey cooking in the electric oven. (happy days).

I uderstand what etheltbags1 is saying.
I have not experienced what she is saying, but I know of areas like she is describing.
And to those people there, professionals seem to come from a different world. And in most cases, not absolutely all, they indeed do.
So yes, examples[and there will be many] where a HV or suchlike try to solve or advise on a problem, can be well outside of what they experience themselves, so are inappropriate to their clients.

I think that to some people, it is still very much a you and them situation. And they are scared.
Another for instance. There were many parents at my childrens' school who did not go to parents evenings. Why not? Because they were still scared of teachers, many years after they themselves had left school. So had no wish whatsoever to revisit a school if they did not have to. They had no wish to be told off all over again, even if it was about their child or teenager.
They still find schools uncomfortable places.

So ditto, doctors, and any other profession.
She says it would be great for them to spend some time there. She is right.
Imagine if planners for instance spent time there?

It isnt going to happen for most professions.

But it is no good also saying that so called sink estates shouldnt exist or whatever either. Because that isnt going to happen.

I think GPs are getting younger rosequartz. Much younger.

thatbags - did they live in a squalid area too? A bit different though when they know that they are not staying. But yes, at least they will have experienced damp, noisy neighbours etc.

ja - but it is not just about assumptions. It is about understanding. And asking appropriate questions.
For instance, I read of a doctor and his team who couldnt work out quite what was wrong with a child. Eventually they realised that he was hungry. Day in and day out. It had taken them months to reach that most easy of answers.

Galen the son of someone I knew was a collector of all sorts of rubbish, piles of newspapers, etc., and car and aeroplanes bits. His kitchen was so full of fridges and freezers there was only just room to get between them and the table.
One day this friend had not seen her son for a few days, so called at his house. He had been cleaning a propeller on the kitchen table and had a heart attack. He had fallen forward onto the propeller and impaled himself and died.

So, ethel, if your husband had fixed door handles, what would the council have done? Thrown you out, or said thank you?
How old was your council house?
You obviously fell for Thatcher's trick by buying your council house. The council shouldn't be expected to replace your kitchen if you have bought the house.

Just to clarify, we didn't buy our house because of falling for any tricks! (I have no idea what that is all about just a vague notion about the history) - we bought our house from a young NZ couple who had obviously bought it from an owner and so on.

I have said before that we found it most amusing that the estate agent kept on telling us "You do realise it's ex local authority?" which meant nothing to us, really. We just liked the house. Thank God I don't know too much about the so-called class system.

Wasn't talking about you, Grannyknot. My son and his partner bought a very nice ex-council flat in York, with lots of room in it, because they could afford it and they liked it.
I was talking about Ethel, who lived in a council house before she bought it, then saw all her council neighbours getting their kitchens done up.

I lived in council houses for the first twentyfive years of my life. My father used to fix anything that needed fixed, decorate and wallpaper, (except big structural repairs) and no-one threw us out for it, or even noticed as far as I recall. He kept the garden beautiful, too. About half of our neighbours did the same, about a quarter did some things around the house and/or looked after their garden, and about a quarter did nothing anywhere.

It only takes a few people to be prepared to live in squalor without helping themselves for the area to look run-down, which means that fewer and fewer others feel it is worth bothering, and the spiral begins.

If each tenant did what they could there would be less for the council workmen to do, and perhaps they would get more done.

I agree with Rosequartz about GPs from childhood - however, I think that with rationing - especially sweets - people were much healthier then. So many health problems are associated with obesity, smoking and other lifestyle choices.
Several years ago, MIL went into hospital and came out with bedsores. Retired nursing friends of my age+ were horrified that this had happened. So preventable with old fashioned nursing care.
When my mother was in hospital, my sister took in antisptic wipes to ensure everything was clean - and it was necessary too.
On the other hand, when I was in hospital, I couldn't have had better care, same with my husband. However, we were younger then and I think this may have a bearing on the care we received.
I think the modern NHS suffers from too many managers and not enough 'doers'. Bring back the old fashioned Matron.

I agree Nana.
I said much the same on another thread. That there are too many admin. A poster said that they were needed to free up clinical staff.
But it is a matter of numbers. Too many admin and chiefs.

Just got back to this - I didn't think you were djen - I just realised that because I hadn't qualified what I wrote, others may think that I bought a Council house I had previously occupied as a Council tenant.

Ethel why on earth didn't you fix the door handles?

"Good clinicians do not judge their patients; they listen to them, hear what they are saying, treat them and try to understand them as individuals and empathise with them. "

A well spoken middle class woman on the radio was saying that she used to live in a very affluent area of Bristol, but then had to move to a poor/sink estate area. She had phoned in because the difference in the doctors had been a real eye opener. In the posh area the GPs had treated her with respect, involving her in her treatment and decisions, explaining etc. When she got to the poor area she was treated like a sponger and timewaster by patronising doctors who explained nothing, and didn't involve her in her treatment at all.

Well Crun middle class people are supposedly adept at getting the best out of state services, aren't they?
I will hold my hand up and say that because of the state-provided education I was fortunate enough to receive, I am middle-class.
When we moved to the area where we live now, the first piece of research we did was to find out where the good state schools were.
They turned out to be very good, as are the doctors.
But that's what middle class people do, isn't it?
Most people like to live amongst people like themselves.
Trevor Phillips in his recent documentary about race, made the point that in his childhood he could have made a map of north London according to where all the different racial and national groups had chosen to live.