How outrageous is this .....

You may or may not remember when Mark was in BRI hospital last we had real problems in that his consultant at Pinderfields was convinced all his pain problems were in his head and he needed psychological counselling. That idea was planted in the head of the consultant at BRI and he asked Mark if he was willing to speak to the psychologist. Although this was frustrating because we had been fighting this with our Pinderfields consultant for some time and that was why he was not willing to refer Mark for a second medical assessment. Anyway Mark agreed to speak to the psychologist and had a long session with her on his own and then a second session with us both there.  She wrote a report and her opinion was that Mark's pain was not in his head and that in her professional opinion he should be seeking a second medical assessment.  That report was sent to his consultant at Pinderfields and following that he agreed to refer Mark to Mr Flint in Birmingham. That has progressed in that Mr Flint is willing to operate but it will be months until that happens.  So far so good. A struggle to get that far but we made it.

A couple of weeks ago Mark gets a call from his local Doctor (remember the psychological report was written in March of this year) because the Doctor had had a letter from Mark's consultant at Pinderfields, a letter that was badly written and confusing but the gist of it was that he was strongly suggesting Mark seek psychological help for his pain management. The Doctor was confused because a copy of the report was in his notes and he wanted to discuss with Mark how his situation may have changed since the report and how he wanted to proceed from here. To say Mark was confused was an understatement. He calmly went through the story with the Doctor again and between them they agreed to ignore the letter. I was outraged. How dare that b****y consultant start interfering again with the same argument that had already been discarded by the very expert he had insisted Mark speak to. What was the point of the damned report if he wasn't going to take any notice of it. It seems that although he wanted the psychology assessment he had no intention of taking any notice of it because it didn't back up what he wanted to hear. I was spitting tacks and said I thought Mark should email him and ask him what right he had to start demanding his local Doctor recommend him for more assessments. He hasn't even seen Mark since he came out of hospital, what an unprofessional way to deal with a patient. I have absolutely no faith in this guy and I think we should report his behaviour and insist on being moved to another consultant. Unfortunately I don't think after all the battles we've fought I have the energy to do anything about it right now.

To top that lot off we've just found out that the paperwork we handed in and got a receipt for to get Marks benefits changed can't be found anywhere in the system and we have to start again ..... aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!!!