NHS? It's not what it used to be!

Initially, I saw three or four wheel-chairs chained to the wall. In my naïve wisdom, I enquired with a couple of nurses and a receptionist if they could release one, but they just looked at me as if I were asking for a kidney. 'Those are purely for emergencies', they informed me.

So annoyed and exasperated, I took up my search up and down the corridors - but to no avail.

Not even crutches or a walking stick were in sight.

Two security guards and a hospital porter couldn't locate a wheel-chair either. One of them even stated - and I'm not kidding - that the chances of finding one free are pretty low. 'You're mother would be better off walking slowly.'

I was flabbergasted and wanted to punch him on the nose. Surely we were in a hospital in the UK, weren't we - not in the Sahara or the paddy-fields in India?

I can't work out why it is that all the unhelpful people or nutters end up working for the council or the NHS?

Nevertheless, I did eventually find one - half an hour later - by which time I was fairly annoyed. But the ordeal didn't stop.

Once we got through the prolonged boredom of waiting in the A&E, my mother was expected to change in the x-ray room without privacy in front of a male radiographer. It was as if he thought a woman of a certain age loses her right to privacy and respect. Obviously we complained and it was only reluctantly that he provided her with a cubicle.

It's clear that older people in this country are not given the same kind of consideration and courtesy afforded to younger patients. The overwhelming presence of some staff nurses talking loudly patronisingly about/to patients, so that everyone in the hospital can hear, does little to improve matters.

And there's blatant incompetence.

A few weeks previously my mother went to see a young nurse at our surgery, at our GPs referral, for those bandages as support for her knees (they have to measure the legs, apparently). But the girl - sorry, nurse - had no idea why we were there. Nothing in her notes gave her any hints. So we explained what was needed and remember - my mother's in pain. The nurse stated that she couldn't measure her legs because she wasn't a district nurse. That's the job of her other colleague who was on holiday. Could we come back next week, she asked.

Could we heck! I wanted to strangle her slowly.

But I stayed calm.

I explained that we were disappointed and requested a visit from the district nurse. That, we were told, might take some time because they're very busy and understaffed.

That was rather absurd because two weeks, two district nurses (not one) came over to hand my mother... a Zimmer frame, not support bandages.

My mother explained that she doesn't need a frame, and that she can move about if she has some basic support. But did they listen? They insisted she needed a frame, an expensive contraption - the cost of which the NHS has to fork out. And it was only reluctantly that they took it back.

No wonder the NHS is understaffed, the staff are duplicating each other's work like a dog chasing its own tail. And they're giving away costly equipment which patients don't even need.

I don't want to alarm you but if you can't get basic stuff like bandages or a wheel-chair in a hospital, what chances are there of you having something more critical like an operation?

And, would you believe it, a month later (after two phone calls and a letter), there was still no sign of those support bandages...