Notes from the
Written by the doctor who had the conversation, about the questions that keep coming back — and none of it is a press release.
Blood pressure is boring, which is exactly the problem
Nothing hurts. Nothing swells. There is no day on which a person with untreated hypertension feels ill enough to come in, and that is the whole of why it is the commonest cause of stroke on this ward. A reading takes ninety seconds and costs ₵40, and about one in three adults who walk through this door for something else turns out to need one.
Five more,
No press releases and no reprints. Each one is by the doctor who had the conversation, and every figure in them is ours.
Four thousand photographs, ninety-one people who had no idea
The diabetic retinal screening programme started in 2019 on an argument nobody in the building enjoyed: that offering something to everybody eligible, whether they ask or not, is different from making it available. Ninety-one people have since been treated for retinopathy they had no symptoms of at all.
Why your doctor here said no to antibiotics
It is the most common disagreement in the consulting room and the one where being liked and being right pull hardest against each other. Most of what brings people in with a cough and a fever is viral, and the honest answer — rest, fluids, come back in three days if it turns — is the one that feels like being sent away with nothing.
The six signs that mean bring the child now
Most childhood fever is nothing and waits until morning. Six things do not: a child who will not wake properly, breathing that pulls in at the ribs, a rash that does not fade under a glass, a fit, no wet nappy in twelve hours, and any fever at all under three months old.
What actually happens to your blood in the three hours
The tube goes into a centrifuge for ten minutes, the plasma comes off, and an analyser that was calibrated at seven this morning reads it. The remaining two hours and forty minutes are queueing, checking and a human being looking at anything the machine flags. That last part is the reason the answer is trustworthy.
What antenatal care actually costs, at all three hospitals
Nobody publishes this and everybody wants it. Here are the real figures for the three obstetric units we book into, what each includes, what happens if you need a caesarean, and which of the private schemes cover which part of it.
Sent when there is
No newsletter schedule, no offers, and nothing sold to anybody. Write to us and we will add you; write again and we will take you off.
Nothing here is medical advice for your particular case. That is what the twenty minutes in the room is for.
