Here comes
the rain again…the rain
of meteorites that seem to pick their moments and shower down all at once on
the day you decided to leave the house without an umbrella.
So, spoke
too soon about breathing space. Really, what was I thinking?
The sodding
TV has stopped working again. Nick has broken a fifth, or is it sixth remote
control, and now can’t even switch the television on at the plug.
Like
everything else, it’s just not Huntington’s proof. Simon spent the whole
evening fiddling with it but neither of us are technicians and the
manufacturers in the call centre are only able to do so much of a diagnostic
from a distance. Is it worth just throwing money at it and buying a new
television altogether, I wondered, and then looked at the prices and felt like
crying.
And even if
either of us could afford it, I can’t see what difference a new TV would make; of
course we could get a cheap television quite easily, even a secondhand one, but
no. He wants a smart TV so he can have a wide choice of channels, radio, films,
iplayer and most of all Netflix, all the things that brighten up his days.
And smart
TVs have software that goes wrong, and can only be operated by remote controls
that break when they get thrown on the floor. Why aren’t there any TV repair
men any longer, like we had the olden days? The smart TV revolution has changed
all that. There don’t seem to be televisions that can be fixed by twiddling a few knobs and switches now, it’s all done now over the
phone via a call centre.
The thing
is, Nick has nothing else. He likes the newspaper but it takes him a week to
read the small tabloid sized i, his powers of concentration are dwindling, and
his constant chafing and plucking shreds it to a rag after a couple of days. He
can listen to the radio but has to keep the sound down because of Vic, and
really he just wants to lose himself in the box set binge and the escape of the
moving image.
It’s the
mainstay of his life – apart from wine, and actually I’d almost say he’d rather
have the television than the wine. Especially Netflix. Whenever Netflix goes
down, for various reasons, it seriously affects his mood. He drinks more, he’s
low; it might sound like a First World Problem but think about it, he has so
little else.
So we have
to sort it out.
In addition
to this, we’ve had a letter from the NHS business centre fining Nick £100 +
costs for ticking the wrong box for a prescription in September.
Ridiculous!
We said. Of course, he’d done no such thing. But the computer said yes he had.
I did a bit of investigating and it turned out that a few months ago the
District Nurse had alerted the GP about the sore looking cracks in Nick’s
fingers. A cream was duly prescribed and delivered, which the carers have been
using assiduously (once they realised that it was for his hands, not his
bottom) and his fingers are much better.
I had
nothing to do with this, and apparently it was the GP who made out the prescription
and ticked whichever box on his behalf. The surgery say it wasn’t a GP, it was
the pharmacy. The pharmacy say they can’t trace that and it was probably the
carers who ticked the box when they collected the meds. No-one can admit
accountability, so it’s our problem. So-ree.
I’ve
written back to NHS business to explain that it was evidently an error by a
medical practitioner and could they please take it up with the GP surgery and
pharmacy themselves, but they’re having none of it.
As far as
they’re concerned, Nick is liable to a penalty charge for fraudulent behaviour.
They expect a written response from Nick himself and won’t even talk to me until
I’ve submitted original documents proving my Power of Attorney, and a covering
letter signed by a medical professional vouching for my authenticity and for
Nick’s lack of capacity. By next week.
When I
think of all the high end fiddling that goes on in the business world, the absolute
shambles of Brexit and all the people who are PAID TO DO THEIR JOBS, it seems
even more iniquitous to target the vulnerable who are already struggling
desperately just to get through each day.
The general
opinion is that it doesn’t matter that this was a practitioner error that
should surely be dealt with through the system not the patient, it can’t
(won’t) be sorted out internally through the NHS and it’s poor Nick who’s liable.
I just have
to suck it up and provide the documentation like a good girl and alongside
trying to sort out the sodding television, kiss another few hours of my life
goodbye and try to wade through all this treacle.
