Well I’m not feeling too clever with meself, and that’s nowt to do with just being boostered, this time around, with Pfizer. Sometimes, as those dear to me will know, I just can’t deal with simple questions (to those doing the asking mebbies) with a straight forward answer.
Of course I’m grateful, appreciative, respectful, compassionately understanding of the pressure and stress many of my friends, family, and those working in the NHS have been under. However, is the ‘consultant’ (volunteering) this morning looking down the end of her nose when she said in a rather sharp fashion, “take that jacket off, and put it there, on that chair, and you sit over there (pointing)? Is she respectful of me, bus drivers and the health and social care sector and anybody else for that matter, and what we’ve all endured through this crisis?
Oh dear. We clashed. I sensed that she had lost part of the argument when her colleague at the desk chipped in, and unlike the ‘consultant’, her body language towards me was more positive, with little signals here and there, nods and the like. Genuine human contact and interaction. I didn’t raise my voice but neither did I hold back about finishing the answer to the question she had asked, which was, “what ‘brand’ of vax did you have before?”
Well, I’ve had two injections, I explained carefully – and you should have that kind of information registered on your records anyway – with the whole Astra Zeneca lecture from me about mine being on the banned list because it was imported from India, where people were dying on the streets . . .”Mr Reed”. . . and if I’d known that then, I never would have had it. . . “stop now please”. . . don’t tell me to stop, you’ve asked the questions, have some understanding here. . . .
Another colleague appeared in the doorway, to see what was going on, and helped to calm it down a bit. I really found myself very annoyed, at an alarming speed – although I felt calm, just upset – as she prepared the needle and I had my injection. One of the volunteers asked me to stay for a minimum of 15 minutes – “it’s compulsory” she said. Oh no, here we go again. Compulsory? What the fuck are they saying I thought? Compulsory? You mean like last year’s Christmas party at No 10? Like Cummings and his eye sight test at Barnard Castle? I stayed for just 2 to 3 minutes to avoid another escalation of tensions, which I thought was rather magnanimous of me, until I felt stupid for doing so, looking around the room and watching everyone compliantly sitting there, then left. Compulsory!
Walking Wilby on the beach, moments after, I couldn’t let it go. “I am apolitical” she had said. What about the blatantly hostile privatisation of the NHS getting taken over by American Insurance companies? Are you apolitical about that as well? “Write to your MP” with a swipe of her hand to shush the conversation down. It was going round and round in my head that statement. “I am apolitical” echoing in my head, gnawing away. So I put Wilby back in the car and drove back.
I was incensed and two or three volunteers just looked on as I walked in reverse through the waiting room area where an attempt to stop me failed, and I could see her appointment had just finished and she came out into the corridor and we had a sharp exchange, face to face – her initial annoyance at me for some reason wasn’t imagined because she had obviously been stewing as well – and this heightened conversation resulted in another big wig standing between us trying to direct me back. I was livid and said to him, “I’m just going to say my piece” and he was fine about that.
Pointing at her this time, with a slightly exacerbated, raised voice I have to confess, I brought the whole damn building to a standstill. I told her directly that the next time she sticks a needle in someone’s arm saying “I’m apolitical” then think of the 53 year old mother of two kids who worked in a local care home up the road who is now dead, the 10s of thousands of people dealing with death and separation, failed track and trace, endless incompetence and stinking corruption, on and on. . . . Ending with something like. “And don’t patronise me with a request to write to a venal, lackey charlatan like Richard Drax MP, who quashed the reality of what care workers faced on the frontline by silencing the local paper from reporting anything whatsoever and who has supported legislation to refuse to give nurses a pay rise. Apolitical? You must need your brains examined.”
She slowly retreated back into her office, walking backwards, closed the door, and I turned and left as the doctor nodded back. Well I’m not returning to apologise, and if she wants to, she can have a little think to process our exchange. But nevertheless, some people have got to realise that we are not all sheep, and enough is enough. Hopefully, that’s the last needle in the arm for a while.
Many thanks to the doctor who facilitated my rant by allowing it, where I felt it needed directing without once threatening to call the Police to have me arrested. A week on from last week’s debacle I think it’s high time to have a break from masks, jabs and the whole damn thing. . . After all is said and done, I do feel rotten though, and I’m sorry to leave all this displacement here, but it’s happened. At least I’m not in custody! The volunteers and the staff there are great on the whole, it was just off on the wrong foot from the word go today.
Darkened room required. Forgive me Lord.
A.C. Reed
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