Does private medical care make you feel annoyed? There's clearly an inherent injustice that even the most capitalist can't entirely swerve - surely all humans deserve to be made better when they're ill? Or is it because you curse at the gobsmacking amount it costs to insure your family each year, especially when it often turns out not to cover the thing you actually need - physio, talking therapy, all of the anaesthetist's fee.
Like many things, it makes me feel both guilty and grateful. But I recently added a dose of incredulity to that mix.
A few weeks ago, I had another steroid injection in my spine. I had slipped the disc for about the fourth time - or rather, the prolapse at L4/L5 was tangibly worse, and pressing on the L5 nerve, giving me sciatica as well. It was f*cking agony for a good few days, then only medium pain, for the forseeable future.
I had it done at a private hospital in London, paid for on my health insurance. A porter greeted me at the main entrance. Another carried my stuff up. The room was nicer than some hotels I've stayed in, and there was a note in the bumpf apologising that it wasn't possible for all rooms to have a view of the river.
I lay back and felt guilty. Mostly about not being at work. Having had four weeks off in June for another bout of depression, I felt bad about taking another day off for health reasons, despite my employer being totally supportive. It was also blissfully peaceful, to be in a room on my own, without children, with no one expecting me to do any home admin jobs for the next few hours, despite the whizzy wi-fi.
In pre-op, a rather handsome but very young consultant anaesthetist had several goes at finding a vein, gave up on one hand and tried the other. I apologised for my difficult veins, explained that they ran in the family and insisted it wasn't his fault (see - I'm so good at that guilty and grateful thing). He got one in the other hand, and they wheeled me through.
Now the thing you have to understand is that thanks to ECT I've had more general anaesthetics than you've had hot blog notifications. I'm very familiar with how it works and like to show off how unphased I am by chatting casually and making weak jokes.
As it happens, the procedure didn't require a general, just an epidural and IV sedation. But the experience is pretty much the same - they stick a needle in you, set up a canula, put an oxygen mask on you, then administer the good stuff. You feel all swimmy - in a good way - go to sleep, then wake up in the recovery room.
As I lay on my front, having my back and upper bum (there's a lot of it - at least three distinct storeys) exposed and cold stuff painted onto it, Mr Hotnaesthetist explained, with what I hope was a note of embarrassment in his voice, that the forthcoming oxygen might smell of vanilla. Because apparently they wipe the masks with vanilla-scented stuff to make it smell nicer. Normally the mask smells sort of rubbery, but not particularly unpleasant. I gave him a smile to put him at his ease.
But then they put it on and bloody hell did it smell of vanilla! It was almost overpowering. Had they doused it in vanilla essence? It certainly was no more pleasant than the ordinary snorkel smell. "Bloody hell," I muttered to him, as I drifted off to sleep, "now I really know I'm in a private hospital - vanilla-scented oxygen".
This is the detail that has really stayed with me - that, and the temporary lack of pain I'm now in. I don't need vanilla-scented oxygen. I don't need Molton Brown accessories in the bathroom (why didn't I steal them and wrap them up for someone's Christmas present)? I am lucky enough to be able to afford private health insurance, but how much less would it be if you knocked all these unnecessary luxuries off the tab? Or could the money go to the NHS? Would it make any difference whatsoever?
To me, going private should mean that you get seen more quickly. You don't go on a several-month waiting list to see a consultant, let alone have an operation. Perhaps a more consistent standard of nursing care too. But it shouldn't mean a five-page menu from which to choose your lunch, even if you're only a day patient.
I feel bad about this. Cross too. I couldn't help noticing that most of the other patients I came across looked as if they'd flown in especially for this visit. Is it for people like them, rich, used to a certain level of luxury, that our private hospitals are like this? If I was self-funding the whole shebang, rather than claiming it off my policy, would I feel less bad?
Am I rich?
I think my husband and I would both answer a categorical No to that question. But everything's relative. I got in a black cab the other day for the first time in ages, just because I was late and tired. That's pretty extravagant. I choose to work for a charity because I mind about what I do and what good it does, though I could probably earn a higher salary elsewhere. But that's a luxury in itself though, having that choice. Which leads me to one of my favourite worries:
Am I posh?
I suppose I do say dulling instead of darling. I correct Logie when he says toilet instead of loo. I went to boarding school - and hated it, as I always hurriedly add. My neighbours did me the great honour of saying I sounded like Joyce Grenfell earlier this summer, when we were in our bordering gardens and Felix had just learned to walk. "Why does Felix keep falling over?" they said a few days later, doing an impression of Logie. "Because you keep hitting him with a stick!" they gleefully finished off, doing what I think may have become a bit of an anecdote in their household.
This is fine by me because Joyce Grenfell was my absolute hero growing up. Mum gave me the tape of 'George, Don't Do That' when I was about ten and I can vividly remember standing in Granny's kitchen, laughing so hard at this bit it actually caused discomfort in my stomach, but I couldn't stop: "Timmy, what's that in your hand? But we haven't had toast and marmalade for two days. Where did you find it? In your pocket! No, don't eat it, it's all fluffy. Just come here and DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING because your hands are sticky."
But only a small minority of my friends have an accent like mine. Does that mean I'm the worst of all evils - a modern middle?
Pretending to muck in with everyone while secretly doing my shopping on Ocado. (Actually, I've been experimenting with Morrisons online recently, where the weetabix is cheaper but the number of substitions and missing items greatly higher.) Sending Logan to the brand new academy school, five minutes walk away, instead of the local primary that's practically on our doorstep. Or the private school we put him down for 'as a fallback' even though we'd have to win the lottery to afford the fees. That way I can convince myself he'll get a decent education with a good mix of friends, not feel embarrassed about telling my cleaner and justify it to my dad on the basis of it being part of a network of schools sponsored by the Ark charity, which is the brainchild of Arpad Busson, that famous financier and terribly decent chap you see in the papers.
I'm certainly not a trendy middle. I've recently started wearing JEGGINGS, from M&S. Just before that, Jon and I went to a charity dinner dance at a golf club. I don't know which of that last sentence to put in caps, but I think it pretty much sums up my lack of glamour. Perhaps it helps place me quite neatly on the class-system map too.
But one thing that types like me are good at doing is working the NHS system. I know that if you want a rare, same-day appointment you have to start ringing our GP surgery at 8:28am, listen for the change in recorded message when it opens at 8:30am and immediately press 1 without listening to any options in order to beat everyone else frantically trying to get through. I know what questions to ask, what info to provide, what to push for next when taking my ill child to a walk-in clinic.
And that, coupled with my private medical insurance for when anything serious comes up, also makes me feel guilty. It doesn't seem right, but then again doesn't everyone want the best for their children? What sort of stand could I take that would make any difference whatsoever? What should politicians be doing about it?
My view is that you need to know a lot more about the facts before you put your own political view out there, and I don't so I won't. But I do feel quite strongly about the scent of my oxygen.
