Filler

Unerring trust

David A Black, general practitioner, South Milford, Leeds. 

Mine is a rural practice in north Yorkshire, spanning over 20 villages. Needless to say, we have several branch surgeries, each of which has a different social grouping and a character of its own. Close to one distant surgery was a piece of common land, much favoured by the travelling people, most of them genuine Romany.

When in residence, they would turn up at the surgery in hordes, very demanding, but always respectful and polite. You had the feeling that complaints and illnesses had been "stored up," for a good sorting out. They always attended surgery and never called me out, although I had once been escorted with great dignity to a stream, in order to wash after delivering a baby.

I was, therefore, surprised to be asked to call at the caravans in order to see a man who was "very sick." It was a summer evening and a chair was produced for me to sit in the open. A cyanosed and breathless man of about 65 was helped from a caravan in obvious cor pulmonale. Accustomed to a different audience, I was horrified and began to talk about hospital admission, but this was firmly and politely declined.

At the end of a long day I became irritated and asked if they had brought me seven miles to refuse my advice. With patience they explained that they had received my advice. If I thought he was going to die then they were sure I was correct. Politely they added, "What you don't realise is, we have brought him from 200 miles away to see you."

Humbled I returned to my comfortable home. I never saw him again.