Crash

It is the third week of term and I have been working hard and steadily, but today I feel it has all caught up with me and I feel so tired!, And I find myself thinking about the students. what is it like to be a Thai bride? what is it like to be an Estonian care worker? are they treated fairly? Some of my students are unemployed, past middle age, and are getting depressed. The faces come into my mind one after another.

I saw a programme about the NHS last night and the GP who was featured was an absolute star. She saw so many patients in a day - more than 40, without losing her professional manner or her judgment. I simply couldn't do that day after day. The NHS is full of workhorses like that who keep going even when the people they see are pretty hopeless. They care. there was also a wonderful middle aged nurse who tested the homeless for TB, taking the mobile X-ray unit wherever the homeless gather, and seeing all the saddest cases, but cheerfully asking what kind of noxious substances they'd been taking and giving out pairs of clean socks. She was exactly like the midwives in Call the Midwife, but older and wiser.

what a strange society we are, some so strong and some so unable to cope.