14 November (Part 1) - Michael Barnbrook aka @sleazebuster
Don’t
worry, he is not dead but he has asked me to pass on the news to old Bexley friends
and 18,500 Twitter followers if possible that he is back in hospital thanks to
his Loeffler’s endocarditis - look it up yourself - and with a very poor phone connection.
The latest problem began a week ago after he had accumulated an estimated 15
litres of fluid in the lower regions. The ambulance service let him down and he
made his own way to A&E where he waited eleven and a half hours to be seen as an urgent
case. Then another six hours to be allocated a bed.
Michael is at pains (bad pun) to point out that he has received excellent treatment in hospital but it has
not been without its unbelievable moments, or as Mick is inclined to see them, humourous moments.
The plan was to hitch him to a machine which if I understood correctly would
intravenously fill him with something that would get rid of the excess of
water. By Friday the problem should have reduced to the point he could take a
similar machine home and a District Nurse would visit twice a day to do whatever is necessary.
The plan fell apart when it was discovered that his part of Kent doesn’t have
any District Nurses so he is going to be a bed blocker for two weeks.
The excitement does not stop there.
Mick has been trying to keep active and two weeks ago joined his local bowls
club. This week came news that one of the members there had gone down with
Covid. Mick had been in the same club house but not close to him, nevertheless, honest as ever, he
told the hospital authorities and they panicked.
Despite him being Covid tested negative he was put into isolation. Not very
effectively, there was nothing but curtains between him and the next patient but
he wasn’t allowed to leave his eight foot square prison cell. No toilet, no
shower, no washing his hair, no brushing his teeth.
Mick has never been one for placidly lying down (another bad pun?) so he rebelled and announced his
intention to take a trip to the bathroom after midnight when there would be no
staff around. Panic again. This apparently was
going to bring the whole ward to a standstill. One trip to the bathroom would
require it to be taken out of use until it was fumigated, disinfected and sanitised, demolished and rebuilt or whatever. All for a man who tested negative for Covid.
Mick can be charming when he needs to be so he called for Matron and charmed her
into seeing sense. She has decreed that he can stop using his bucket now, but he is still
unnecessarily detained in hospital because there are no District Nurses in East Kent.
And Sajid bloody Javid is going to sack some of them as soon as he can.