NHS World
Bring me the digital freezer
Bring me the microwave phone
Stand by the thresholds with manager’s specials
Bring me a bed of my own
In a year and a day, when I’m poorly and tired
Tell me my warranty’s sadly expired
Bring me the drugs in a trolley
Bring me a printer-cum-fax
Christmas bonanzas for whole body scans are
The future for cancer attacks
When I bring myself in for a service repair
Please reassure me, my hard drive’s still there
The nurses may know what they’re doing
But it’s likely you’ll wait in a queue
Before finding, in shock, that your health’s out of stock
With three weeks to wait till it’s due
And if you are pregnant, and ready to pay,
Delivery’s extra, what time they can’t say
When I’m nauseous, ready to vomit
And I don’t know the root or the cause
Don’t take me over to Comet
And the darkness behind its locked doors
Give me a camera and give me a gown
In a business park hell at the edge of the town
Show me the ghost of Clem Attlee
Show me the ghost of Nye Bevan
Let them wander in style down a PC World aisle
And declare it’s an NHS heaven
But send them to Dixon’s, expect them both dazed –
It’s been bagged up and toe-tagged, its ID erased
Click here for an Independent article
Click here to buy Bill’s poetry collection Ringers
