Malcolm Stacey is away today sampling the envy of the world

Fear not it is a routine operation and the Old Boy is planning to be back at his desk in time to pen his column for Wednesday but he has just faxed over news from the Glan Clywd hospital in Bodelwyddan. Malcolm writes…

It is a routine sort of operation. I first noticed a problem in 2019 but while some might grumble about a four year wait for an operation we all know who is to blame. don’t we? It really makes me quite angry to think about all the money the Tories have spent on Brexit while slashing spending on the envy of the world. I was just listening to a junior doctor on the BBC the other day saying how his colleagues had suffered a 98% pay cut since 2008 and all had to sleep in cardboard boxes while eating the patients left over meals. Those are the facts! I am so angry.

But I arrived at Glan Clywd to be greeted at the front desk by a chap with stubble and a deep voice wearing a floral dress. I assume his outfit was some sort of rag week jolly to raise much needed funds for the new diversity and inclusion unit about which there were posters on every wall. The chap introduced himself as Sarah and said that his preferred pronoun was they and asked what mine was.

This was obviously a test of my mental facilities which seems a bit ageist but I decided that it was better to play along with Sarah’s questions and say that I was Malcolm and my pronoun was he. Sarah continued with the quiz and I answered, truthfully, that I was not a person who was pregnant and that I identified as white. She looked rather disapproving of thus, muttering something about quotas and asked if I was sure?

In due course I was ushered from the waiting area into a ward with a nice view of the car park where I was given a bed and told to undress and put on a gown for surgery and that my consultant, Dr Crippen, would be with me shortly but was tied up in his office for a while. I dozed off and it was four hours later that I noticed old Crippers in the car park, transferring a bulging set of golf clubs into the boot of his rather smart Tesla and wandering slowly towards the front door.

Sorry for the delay, an urgent off-site business meeting, said Crippen as he strolled up to my bed, winking at the nurses as he spoke. Now as to the operation, I am afraid that there has been a bit of a mix-up and we must reschedule. Would you like to go private and I can deal with you tomorrow or are you on the NHS? Naturally I said that I was on the NHS which is the envy of the world. I started saying about how I had banged pots and pans every day during the pandemic while social distancing from my neighbours but Crippen just said to the nurse “July 2027”, see you then.

He then apologized and said that he had to rush for a key half day seminar organised by the new diversity and inclusion unit on coming to terms with his white and heterosexual privilege. And he was gone.

Another delay. Obviously, it is all about lack of money. As the Tories kowtow to Nigel Farage and his Russian friends we all know who is to blame. This is a false economy. If we are to grow the economy we must increase taxes on the idle fat cats in the private sector to spend far more on those heroes of the pandemic, the staffers at the NHS. Another letter to the Guardian is called for.