Comments on: Health Centre in Critical Condition

By: vera

vera — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:41:12 +0000

After several questions he said he would have to refer me to an orthopedic surgeon, after more questions he briefly explained what they would do. In order to be referred to the orthopedic surgeon I had to check my insurance details and leave a message at reception, which i did as soon as i got out and left the message with the receptionist who I watched write it down in the messages book.

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By: Steven

Steven — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:25:51 +0000

When I went to the health clinic, the doctor said that my problem would ‘sort itself in the real world’. I don’t care if he is nice or sympathetic to me, I just want to know whether he can treat it or not. I’d also appreciate not being treated like a naughty child.

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By: Liz

Liz — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:29:30 +0000

I visited the doctors in January when I had a sore foot, the doctor told me i had tendonitis and then started typing at his computer, i had to ask questions to get very little further information from him, and he smirked when he gave me the answers and was very condescending and dismissive of my questions, to the point of rudeness. After several questions he said he would have to refer me to an orthopedic surgeon, after more questions he briefly explained what they would do. In order to be referred to the orthopedic surgeon I had to check my insurance details and leave a message at reception, which i did as soon as i got out and left the message with the receptionist who I watched write it down in the messages book. When I went home I ended up ringing NHS direct as I didn’t feel I had any information as to what I was supposed to do. It is now June and I still haven’t recieved a letter telling me when to see the orthapedic surgeon, I’m guessing he forgot to refer me. I’m going through a GP at home now instead.

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By: Cami

Cami — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:38:10 +0000

@dddd: not sure why you feel the need to defend the health centre/doctors in general (belief in the system? defiant optimism?..) but there is no excuse for the kind of attitudes that I have witnessed. The doctor is there to listen to your problem and fix it (if possible), rather than make assumptions, UNLESS THERE IS GOOD REASON TO, that the student is a hypochondriac.

Not to mention the fact that my doctor told me that, ‘If this was happening to a guy, this would be much more serious and would be dealt with straight away’ (In spite of the symptoms being pretty much similar for guys/girls) and then affectively tried to guilt me into agreeing with his belief that I was wasting his time.

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By: ~

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:31:29 +0000

The second graph (only one in the online version?) really says it all. When you have a national benchmark and the other practices are above and we’re missing by 20%, there’s a problem.

Everyone knows that the health centre is pretty shabby. It can’t do the job that it’s supposed to do. David Lindsey makes the valid point that it’s not a proper health centre but it *really is*. Maybe the long-term staff can use proper health centres but students tend to have the choice of this or the hospital and we’re reliant upon the health centre as much as anyone in Leeds is reliant upon theirs.

No, it’s not a proper centre. But it SHOULD BE. No, staff don’t always treat students with respect, but they SHOULD. No, students don’t always go there with the right attitude and/or with a real illness; but they SHOULD. Sometimes you can’t change things and sometimes you can. If the university cared about student health then we’d be seeing a proper plan for a real health centre/pharmacy on Hes East. But it’s not in the plans and you have to wonder why..

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By: David Elliott

David Elliott — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:18:09 +0000

“There’s only so much sympathy you can dish out.”

Sorry, but no. Regardless of how many hypochondriacs the health centre has had to deal with (and I’m sure there are some), it’s not up to the doctors to decide whether or not to be sympathetic to a student’s condition (or belief in a condition). ALL patients, and I can’t stress this enough, are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity.

This isn’t just a matter of ‘oh, the doctors are getting paid to do it, they should put up with it’, it’s a fundamental question regarding the responsibility of the doctor to take his patients on a case by case basis rather than automatically assuming that they’re all asshole silver spoon cry babies. If the problem is genuinely all in the patient’s mind then of course the doctor is allowed, obliged even, to tell them so, but in the stories mentioned in the article this wasn’t happening. Alan, the student with the lifelong sexual health condition, after telling the doctor that he was sexually active, was ASSUMED to be sexually immature, and the diagnosis was based on this assumption. No questions were asked as to how long he had been in a sexual relationship

Being torn between two practices is no excuse – the vast majority of doctors (NHS or private) have a phenomenal workload and regularly have to deal with difficult characters, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be accused of malpractice or negligence if they give a patient legitimate grounds to do so. I’m not suggesting that how the doctors at the health centre behaved was tantamount to malpractice or negligence, just that if there’s a definite problem with their attitude they can’t just fob off the blame onto us and their hectic work life.

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By: dddd

dddd — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:47:51 +0000

but the doctors feel like that, and behave like that, because they’ve had to put up with so many hypochondriac arseholes who waste their time. thy didn’t all graduate, etc etc, go into surgery thinking ‘yeah let’s belittle this student for worrying about xyz cos it’d be jokes’ they just assume we’re all the same twats and they just want us to leave them alone.

i get it treated differently all of the time, some porters have a diva attitude that needs readdressing; when applying for jobs i got told that they didn’t think i was a student because i wasn’t up myself, etc. it’s the same reason local landlords are being banned/restricted in the number of houses they buy to rent to students; the deramore hate us all; we are the architects of our own demise, all the shit we get is OUR fault as a student body. obviously victims (i.e: decent students tarred with the same brush) will think it’s unfair, but you can hardly argue that it’s unreasonable for real adults/non-students to feel like this towards us!

they’ve had to put up with people who drink so much they make themselves properly ill, people who don’t eat properly so become ill, etc. there’s only so much sympathy you can dish out, especially when you’re being torn between two practices.

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By: Cami

Cami — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:21:54 +0000

* I disagree that this is the grounds for the majority of complaints.

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By: Cami

Cami — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:20:15 +0000

@dddd: I get that there are twats about that are going to be giving some of the bad feedback. However, as someone who has experienced the patronising, uncaring ‘Doctorly’ attitude of atleast one of the doctors at the health centre, IN SPITE OF being nice, stoical and ready to wait my turn.

Having gone to the health centre 4 times for the same unresolved problem, the final doctor I bothered to see was quick to tell me that this was just a problem some people have, and there’s nothing to be done about it. When pointing out that the literature stated otherwise, I was given a resentful and condescending reply and quickly ushered out. Needless to say I ignored him, and followed what the literature said and now I’m magically better.

I haven’t had all that many issues with the health centre (no more than any other health centre anyway) but the attitude needs to change. Contrary to the Doctors’ opinions, we are not all a bunch of hypochondriac assholes who want to waste their time.

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By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:58:57 +0000

I often take my Mum to the Wenlock Terrace surgery and everything about it is just better. When you consider that both Wenlock and the Uni are part of the same practice group you have to wonder whether the fact that the Uni surgery caters for students is the key problem. I have walked into the same Doctor’s room at both places and felt that I was treated so much better at Wenlock.

I always get the impresion that on campus, the staff assume we’ve done something wrong or are feigning illness for some study-related reason.

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