Nicky Marr: People in the NHS are working miracles

In the 20-plus years since I’ve been writing, I‘ve never had the luxury of someone to type for me.

Picture the scene; I am reclined on the settee, while Mr Marr picks away at the keys on my laptop with two index fingers – he’s frowning at that.

I like to imagine myself as a less wrinkly Dame Barbara Cartland. She famously dictated her novels while reclining in full make-up and ball gown, sipping champagne. My reality is different – I have a cup of tea, a blanket, and a splint on my wrist, courtesy of Raigmore Hospital.

The details of what happened are irrelevant, other than to say that I went from sitting on this same settee on Friday night, thinking my wrist was a wee bit sore, to vomiting with pain in A&E less than an hour later. IV antibiotics and morphine, X-Rays, and a cup of hot, sweet tea sorted me out, and I was allowed home to my own bed for a few hours before a 9am appointment with the consultant on Saturday.

I’m fine. My diagnosis (currently uncertain) is not the point of the story. The point is this; I was moved beyond being able to control my emotions, by the care, kindness, and professionalism of every single person I met at Raigmore in the wee small hours. In fact, I’m welling up again as I dictate this.

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Much is said of how broken and underfunded our NHS is. There was a report in The Times at the weekend suggesting that people are falling out of love with the NHS. Rubbish. We are not.

We may sometimes feel let down, frustrated, and overlooked by a system that is overwhelmed, but that doesn’t mean it’s time for privatisation.

Decades of chronic underfunding, plus the horror of the pandemic, and staff shortages, in part due to Brexit, mean the system is crumbling. But the people who work within it – those who have stayed, whose departments are understaffed and under-resourced, who work long hours without breaks and are often underappreciated and underpaid – are doing their best. And NHS Highland’s best, in looking after me last weekend, was brilliant.

It’s wrong to pick out any of the staff who treated me, but I will. Triage nurse Lianne immediately recognised my pain and bumped me up the queue. Doctor Eve was kind and gentle, but reassuringly thorough, following the ‘worst case scenario’ route, just in case.

Eve left no stone unturned in her search for a diagnosis, pulling up records of my recent visits to Raigmore (quite a few), taking a detailed history (it’s long), and waking a colleague for a middle-of-the-night consultation.

There were several Nicolas and a Nicole, too, and a lovely male nurse who wrapped me in a blanket before painlessly inserting a cannula. And the nurse who brought my tea? What a pet.

NHS systems are broken. But the people within it work miracles with what they have; to care, to treat, to heal. Thank you.

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