Holding the hand above my head, rinsing it with copious amounts of cold water and applying pressure would not do the trick so it was off to our GP's surgery to see the nurse who cleaned it up. She said it probably needed stitches and referred me to the GP. He said I definitely would have to go to the A+E at the regional hospital 20 miles away.
You may well be wondering where the buck stops, please bear with me!
At the A+E I was triaged and got to see another doctor who numbed it, washed it out again and applied another dressing and referred me to an orthopaedic specialist.
The specialist agreed with the other doctor’s opinion that the ligaments were luckily undamaged and that it needed stitches (
).So I was scheduled for “surgery” the next day and booked in for an X-ray and into a bed for the night where I was immediately subject to a regime of starvation, blood tests and vitals monitoring every 4 hours!
At this point I realised how lucky I was as the poor guy next to me had both of his legs broken in several places courtesy of a fallen load of scaffolding and an enthusiastic DIYer opposite had opened up the palm of one hand in a big way with an angle grinder.
The next morning I was taken up to theatre for my “operation” under local where the orthopaedic specialist supervised an understudy, very competent, junior doctor who did the stitches whilst I chatted to a nurse about cats I think it was.
I was then wheeled in a trolley back to my bed where I was visited a few hours later by a consultant who certified me fit to go home with a scrip for painkillers but thankfully not antibiotics . They did a good job, for which I am extremely grateful and it is nearly as good as new with scarcely a scar.
What shocked me, apart from how much it must have all cost, was that I had honestly expected the “surgery” to be carried out by the practice nurse or my extremely highly paid GP. Clearly this state of affairs must have a very limited shelf life and it will be a bit of a shock for GPs when they actually will have to do a bit of actual surgery in their “surgery”, possibly without pain killers, rather than running a very expensive pill dispensing and triage service.
Say a bag of potatoes for four stitches?
)