EXACTLY six days ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, trying to arrange the ties of my hospital gown comfortably, waiting for an operation which was supposed to be “in for today and out tomorrow” – in fact, it all turned out to be a little more complicated than planned, and I was in hospital for as near as dammit to four days.
You have a lot of time to think in hospital, especially if your husband obeys the rules about visiting hours. And some of what I thought about was this: there’s been immense uproar about the inquiry into private healthcare costs, and hospitals have been accused by the minister of being one of the drivers of rising costs.
What no one seems to ask is, what are we getting for the five-star hotel daily costs we pay when we’re stuck in a ward?