The day before yesterday, a friend got in touch to tell us that she had heard that the army was carrying out covid-19 tests at a local sports centre. She was told about it in a parents’ WhatsApp group. I searched online for any information I could find about said testing centre – nothing. Nowhere on the NHS or government websites was there a list of locations where tests were taking place. In any event, according to the government criteria, I am not eligible for a test.
Nevertheless, I decided to get on my bike (for the first time in a couple of weeks) and cycle over to the sports centre. Sure enough, in the car park there was a gazebo set up, and some tape to create lanes for cars to queue, and a few soldiers in camouflage and PPE. There was a small sign saying ‘No public access, covid testing only’ to prevent people walking through the area. I asked a soldier if I could get tested. He said, Yes, no problem, just wait a few minutes – he was helping two people to get tested at the time. When my turn came, he asked me if I had been referred or was self-referring. Self-referring, I told him. I sat at a table and followed his instructions and read a printed leaflet. I carried out a swab test on my throat and nose, put the cotton bud thing into a vial, which went into a plastic bag, I stuck on some barcodes, took away a QR code with which I would later register on the government website, and off I went.
While I was waiting, the soldier had told me that they had been there a couple of days, and were packing up that afternoon. I asked if it had been busy. No, not really, he said – pretty quiet.
Well, no wonder! Because its existence seemed to be a well-kept secret. It certainly had no web presence. No mention of it on my local GP practice’s website. No signs at the tube station or outside Tesco.
While I am glad to have been able to get a test (albeit self-administered and potentially badly done), the system really is a farce. There was nothing to prevent me from getting a test even though I could have had one or more tests elsewhere – or have no symptoms or any reason to need one. I do not meet the government’s eligibility criteria – so what is the point of those critieria if they can simply be circumvented by turning up at a test centre? The potential for wasting resources is obvious.
Meanwhile my sister, a case worker for an NHS trust, is liaising with the 25 care homes and nursing homes in its area to support them during the pandemic. They are reporting to her that they are unable to get tests; or that they have received tests but do not know how to use them; or they have tested their residents but there is no courier available to take them to the lab.
A friend whose mother was removed from her care home because she tested positive for covid-19 (although then tested negative at the hospital where she was taken) tells me that the care home cannot test the other residents. It will not even test his mother’s boyfriend, also resident at the home, unless and until he shows symptoms. All for want of tests.
Can it be the right allocation of resources to set up a field centre for testing which will conduct tests on anyone who turns up – or sit there testing nobody – while there are care homes desperately in need of tests?
I feel rather uncomfortable that I have been tested in those circumstances, but the fact is that I have been feeling unwell for almost two weeks with symptoms which are considered covid symptoms anywhere but the UK, and whether I have or had the virus impacts on how I and my family can live our lives. Anyway, I await my test result – the government website gave me no indication of when I would receive it.
Meanwhile, down other rabbit holes … My employer requires a doctor’s note for absences of more than a week. My manager suggested that I could get a sick note for covid-19 on the 111 website, so I tried. However, because the NHS view is that my symptoms do not amount to covid, I could not obtain an ‘isolation’ note, as it’s called, by honestly stating my symptoms. To keep my employer happy, therefore, I decided to lie and say that I did have a fever and cough, the key to the special door. Beyond that door is a world of caring questions about how I am feeling, whether I am turning blue and so forth – and then the prize: the submission of my details to obtain the isolation note. However, the letter that was sent to me certified my ‘isolation’ (not illness or unfitness to work) for the period 4-10 May, a period of seven days inclusive. I have been off work for two weeks, because my symptoms (spurious though the NHS may deem them) have persisted for that length of time. So I need two isolation notes! I guess I should trick the system into sending me one for the next seven-day period.
All so that the human resources department at work can mark my absence as authorised. No doctor involved; no objective view of my illness. Just me tricking an online system to spew out a meaningless letter or two.
Does the expression ‘box-ticking’ spring to mind?
Bye bye car. Hello clean, friendly city 