The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I spent a good proportion of yesterday at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske, Truro. This hospital trust was recently adjudged to be the worst in the country. Well, I'm no health care expert but three things struck me.

• The Good. The people I met were wonderful. They did everything they possibly could to help, including bending some rules.
• The Bad. Since this hospital cares for many disabled old people, you would think they would have a large stock of wheelchairs. They don't. Together with at least four other people I met, I spent the best part of an hour trying to track down a wheelchair. The system there is that they use a supermarket trolley system and you put a pound coin in a slot to release a wheelchair, and get your pound back when you return it. Please, Royal Cornwall Hospital get some more.
• The Ugly. There were hospital workmen all over the place. Judging by the water sucking vacuum cleaners and very large fans they were cleaning up after a flood. One lift did not work, and the next one along was struggling to cope with the volume of traffic. People muttered and mumbled, but their good nature remained.

For the life of me, I just can't think of any reason why the Bad and the Ugly situations described above were allowed to continue. I bet any manager from Tesco's would have had both sorted out in double quick time.