[lettie]

Unfortunately there are a limited number of good GPs in this country therefore the numbers are very limited around here. The good ones tend to be at Peel House and Myrtle House. These GP's will assess you properly and try to give you the correct treatment. Some of the others will pass the buck and try to send you to the hospital when there is next to nothing wrong with you, or alternatively will write a prescription as soon as you walk in the door in order to shut you up.

From my point of view we get dozens of women each week who end up in our unit with simple urine infections who have been seen by the GP and sent to the hospital because the GP's don't want to know them once they're pregnant. We even had a GP send a woman to us with heartburn!!! I kid you not...... We rarely get women sent to us in this way from Peel House or Myrtle House which are both busy practices with good reputations.

From working on the community for 8 years I can also vouch that these surgeries are full of timewasters. People with nothing seriously wrong with them who could take a couple of Paracetamol at home, but no....... Let's see what the quack says about my cold. People clutter the surgeries for sicknotes in order to claim benefits. The new in thing is stress or depression and these consultations take time. I met a lass a few weeks ago who is on incapacity benefit for depression aged 20. When I asked her if there had been a major event in her life which accounted for her depression..... abuse, terminal illness, bereavement etc. she answered "no." Funnily enough this lass is pregnant, one of the features of true depression is loss of libido, there appears to be nothing wrong with hers. It's timewasters like this who monopolise the services and take attention away from the genuinely ill or depressed.

Peel House has a good reputation and some decent GPs that is why it is so difficult to get appointments. They have a massive caseload and their fair share of timewasters. Bear in mind that timewasters are very convincing and will often concoct a story in order to get an appointment, therefore denying an appointment to somebody genuinely ill.