By Richard Goodfellow
Minor Injuries?
“OK,“ she said. “I’d like you to have an x-ray. “
“Right, when and where?”
“Now, across the road.”
“Pardon?”
“In the hospital.”
“But I haven’t an appointment. “
“You will have by the time you get there. “
I was in the Queen’s Road surgery, talking to a young Egyptian, lady doctor who had obviously inherited all the wisdom of the people who built the pyramids.
I walked across the road to Shotley Bridge hospital and said to the lass behind reception “I’ve got to have an x-ray.”
“OK down there on the right. “
I found a lady sitting in a little cubby hole. “I’ve got to have an x-ray. “
“What name is it?”
I told her.
“Date of birth and first line of your address?”
Again, I told her.
“Just sit down there please “ she said, indicating a row of socially distanced chairs in the waiting area.
Ten minutes later and somebody called my name. In I went for my x-ray.
The whole thing had taken less than twenty minutes from seeing the doctor to walking out having had my x-ray. Not bad for our much maligned NHS!
Driving home a thought struck me. I’m sure I can remember Shotley Bridge hospital used to have a sign saying “Minor Injuries.” What is a minor injury? Presumably a grazed knee is a minor injury.
I give that as an example because I’ve got to that time of life where grazed knees, as in children, are a strong possibility. I’m getting like my mother who could trip over a chalk mark on the pavement, let alone a raised kerb! The problem is, there’s always someone there to witness it.
“Are you OK, pet?”
“Can I help, hinny?”
“Gan canny, man.”
“Aal reet, bonny lad?”
The innate kindness and concern of this North Durham warrior race, descendants of Con, the giant of local legend, belies their rough, tough exteriors!
(Sorry, I do tend to go off down Tangent Boulevard more often as I get older.) Back to “minor injuries”. With all the winter sports played around Consett, there must be a rash of injuries minor or otherwise at the weekend.
Broken limbs, dislocated digits, sprained joints, eyes that had received a finger in the scrum and possibly even stoved in ribs. I made up my mind to make enquiries and find out what did and didn’t constitute a “minor injury”.
Next time I went to the chemist to pick up my prescription, I called in at the hospital. “Excuse me, can you tell me what qualifies as a minor injury?”
“Eeh you’ll have to ask them next door.”
So I went next door, but they wouldn’t even let me in, presumably because I didn’t have a minor injury!
Where to now? I know, that fountain of all knowledge, Google. I should have done that in the first place because it came up straight away. Apparently a minor injury is as follows:- Broken bones, sprains, strains, bruises and wounds, cuts and grazes, hand, arm, foot and leg injuries, bites (insect animal or human), minor burns and scalds, abscesses and wound infections.
Covers most things, doesn’t it?
Look after yourselves.
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