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Moreen Simpson: Pharmacists are our new frontline health fighters

Our NHS is struggling, even on the phones, so more of us are turning to local pharmacies for healthcare, writes Moreen Simpson.

The postie got a fright over the festive period at Moreen's door (Image: Helen Hepburn)
The postie got a fright over the festive period at Moreen's door (Image: Helen Hepburn)

Our NHS is struggling, even on the phones, so more of us are turning to local pharmacies for healthcare, writes Moreen Simpson.

Remember the wonderful Rev I.M. Jolly, the miserable meenister on ancient Hogmanay telly?

Well, think of him with his moanin’ face and whingein’ voice, and that’s the dead spit of me wishin’ you Happy New Year. I hinna been a very festive bunny.

Things started to go wrong last Thursday, when I awoke to a red and swollen left eyelid. As I tottered about preparing for the family buffet, a call from my loon saying he wouldn’t be there because he was laid low with a bug. I ended up with a freezer full of nibbles (which probably shouldn’t have been refrozen).

Come Friday night, my eye was feeling increasingly nae clever. More swollen, redder, sore and itchy. Suddenly, memories of that childhood nightmare when I was about seven. Also a swollen eyelid, which mum had been treating with red-hot bread poultices – a’ that yeast making me niff like a brewery.

Old Doc MacMillan in Culter decided I’d need an op to have the inside of the offending lid “scraped”. (I’ll never forget the chill when he said that word.) Bussie into the Sick Kids to a room with a loon of about 10 and his ma. He was actin’ the goat, like only daft 10-year-olds can.

The former Woolmanhill Hospital now lies empty in Aberdeen. Image: Kenny Elrick/DC Thomson

Whispers mum: “He’s showin’ off that he’s affa brave. I dinna think he is.” Sure enough, when the nurse came to ask who wanted to go first to theatre, he just cowered into his mammie’s shooder. Feel gype. Little Mo went first. If ye’r still oot there now, coowardie-custard, na, na, na-na, na.

A swollen eyelid saga

Back to Swollen Eyelid 2. Saturday morning, it felt worse even without looking in the mirror, which I didn’t get a chance to do before the postie rang at 9am. When I opened the door, he stepped back, sort of startled.

My eye was redder, bigger, and the swelling down to the top of my cheek. That poor Elephant Man came to my horrified mind

I chuckled to masellie: “Has he never seen morning hair like mine before?” Then I passed a mirror. In the name of the wee man. My eye was redder, bigger, and the swelling down to the top of my cheek. That poor Elephant Man came to my horrified mind.

Fit tae dee? In the golden olden days, even on a Saturday, I could have phoned the world’s greatest GP, Derek Gray, at home (as long as he wasnae on duty as the Dons’ doc). When my baby son once had a bad rash, he sent his friend – a skin specialist – to my hoose on his way home from Woolmanhill.

Pharmacists are now the first port of call for many people when feeling unwell. Image: i viewfinder/Shutterstock

I suspected calling 111 would get me nowhere, so I up to the local chemist just before it closed at 1pm, to find it goin’ like a fair.

A fine pharmacist quine had a look, then prescribed cream and tablets. Were it nae better by Wednesday, she suggested I go to my optician because he or she could probably see me sooner than the GP. Good advice.

I was still in a panic ower the weekend, as the damnt thing seemed to be goin’ its red-and-swollen dinger. However, by late Monday night, I fancied it was finally on the wane. Big relief.

So, thanks to the pharmacists – our new frontline health fighters.


Our health service is on life support

The state of the health service is truly frightening. Each day, ever more appalling accounts of long waits for ambulances and treatment at A&E departments. Most of us know someone who’s been caught in the nightmare.

My heart was breaking for a friend with advanced cancer who had to lie, in excruciating pain, on a trolley at an Edinburgh hospital for many hours until a bed could be found. Or another, diagnosed with a malignant tumour in August, who wasn’t operated on until just before Christmas.

Over the years, the rot has set in, as successive governments – but mainly the Tories – starved every branch of the service of cash

I’ve always been proud that the NHS was born just a few months after me. For many years, it really was a service worthy of pride and gratitude. GPs were available almost round the clock; patients could walk in to see them, and they even came to your house if you had a fever or the flu.

Cancer waiting times across Scotland are at their worst ever, with Grampian and Highland missing their latest targets. Image: PA
Hospitals are reaching crisis point. Image: PA

When I had jaundice as a teenager, the doc came to see me every two days for six weeks. No waiting lists for operations.

However, over the years, the rot has set in, as successive governments – but mainly the Tories – starved every branch of the service of cash, forcing some disastrous “money-saving” decisions.

Remember all those wonderful wee cottage hospitals in towns and villages across the area? Most of them now closed. Yet, today they could have taken so much pressure off the main hospitals and caring for old folk.

In the midst of this crisis, all the staff are battling valiantly. We owe them a huge thank you. The real tragedy is that no one has come up with a plan to save our NHS from total collapse.


Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970

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