It’s four weeks until I fly to France for my new hip. Sounds easy doesn’t it, and raises the mantra that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Trouble is that in England, when it sounds too bad to be true then it almost certainly is.
I saw my G.P in July last year, had the go-ahead from the CCG in September, had some complications through taking up the NHS option to choose my surgeon, heard nothing until January, when I got a letter offering me an appointment in March.
What pushed me over the edge – those being the cliffs of Dover and across the channel – was to learn that at this time I’m not even on the waiting list, and that when I am it might take another eighteen months, and in reality possibly two years. That would be almost three years from my G.P. Referral. It occurred to me, though, that if I’d been wrong to think I was already officially ‘waiting’, then I might be wrong to think I’ll get on to the list at all. I meet the criteria by my surgeon’s reckoning (who has been treating me to date), but the NHS might have different ideas, or even more stalling tactics.
It turns out, though, that what costs over £10K done privately here, costs £3.5K done in France. That seems like a small price to raise, even for church mice (with kind relations), to have a working hip. Life is short, and I’m 51: too young to vegetate and too old to waste time and squander my tenuous health.
The ‘treatment’ process that I’m currently receiving, let alone the arthritis, is like Chinese Water Torture – each drip more toxic to my health. Since embarking on the ‘tourism’ route I’m feeling the insecure elation of being released from that imprisonment. Can it really be that simple?
Expedition from the Backdoor 