🌸🌺𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐋🌺🌸 :
About 8 years ago, I had an experience with the NHS that completely changed the way I looked at healthcare.
I was trying to get weight-loss surgery through the NHS. I went through the assessments, appointments and everything they asked me to do. After being on the waiting list, I eventually saw a doctor whose attitude left me feeling uncomfortable and frightened.
Before that appointment, I had done my research, considered my options and decided that I wanted a gastric sleeve, not a gastric bypass.
But this doctor kept insisting that I should have a gastric bypass. No matter how many times I explained my decision, he continued pushing his preference. I found him extremely rude, dismissive and unprofessional. I also felt that the way he treated me as a Black woman was unacceptable.
What frightened me most was his attitude. He came across as cold and lacking compassion. I remember thinking, if this is the person who is supposed to operate on me, I would rather not have the surgery at all.Doctors are professionals, but they are not God. Patients have voices, feelings and the right to be involved in decisions about their own bodies.In the end, I decided not to continue with the NHS route. I went privately and had my gastric sleeve done.But that wasn't even the most painful experience my family had with the NHS.My aunt had cancer. We were told that her cancer was at an advanced stage and that there was nothing more they could do to cure her. We had already been given an idea of how much time she had left.Despite this, she underwent Absurgery.To this day, I struggle to understand why that operation went ahead when we had already been told her condition was terminal. Perhaps there were medical reasons, but as a family, we were left with so many unanswered questions.
That time could have been spent with her. We could have held her, spoken to her and made the most of whatever time she had left.Instead, I remember watching her struggle to breathe after surgery, surrounded by tubes. Seeing her in that condition was heartbreaking. We felt helpless, and it felt as though she had been left to die.That image has never left me.Even today, my family is still carrying pain
2026-11-06 03:34:43