I walk to the beach most days. I haven’t got used to living near the sea. The sound of it is soothing, always clears my mind. And I take for granted the fact that I can walk there, I have the time, it’s safe.
Turning on the tap to give the children a drink, I wonder what it feels like to not have water. To have thirsty children. Hungry children. I take for granted the food in our cupboards even though I budget very carefully.
My father rang tonight. Turns out the tumours they thought they saw on my mother’s brain scans for the drug trial a little while back weren’t tumours at all. That is good news, right? Even though the misdiagnosis means she didn’t get on the drug trial and won’t get the miracle drug that could cure her dementia.
It’s hard to know which part is the good news in that bit. I’m still digesting it.
I sat this morning in a hangout linked up with a room in parliament with people discussing the medical innovation bill. There was a lot of talk about cancer and for a while I wondered why I was in the room. I might be a story teller, but I don’t have a story about cancer.
But this bill isn’t just about cancer. It’s about freeing up doctors from the fear of litigation if they try to innovate in any area of medicine. It’s about more than that. It’s about challenging doctors to refuse the status quo where the status quo isn’t good enough. It’s about making our health service about innovation and improvement.
It’s about not taking good enough for granted any more.
And that’s important, I think.
Leave a Reply