I hear plenty of people tearing strips off the NHS. Yes, it has its flaws. It’s overstretched, underfunded, and sometimes feels like it runs on goodwill and duct tape—but here’s the truth. My recent experience was brilliant.

It all started in spring when I went deaf in my left ear. Like any self-respecting British man in denial of mortality, I panicked. Convinced it was a an electrical fault in my head or a brain spider, I booked an emergency GP appointment. Turned out it was just a hunk of wax. Dignity intact? Not really.

Olive Oil and Tinnitus

I had two choices: drip olive oil into my ear and wait for a follow-up appointment, or pay £75 at an optician’s to have it hoovered out. I’m not loaded, but I’m not broke either, so I shelled out for the Dyson treatment.

The ear came back. Sadly, it brought a friend: tinnitus. A constant, high-pitched ringing that made it feel like I’d just walked out of The Hacienda circa 1990. My brain latched onto the sound and wouldn’t let go. It was maddening. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. I wondered how I’d cope if this was it, forever. In hindsight I reckon the inner ear noise was already there but the hoovering alerted me to it.

A Series of Appointments

Back I went. GP, audiologist, ENT specialist. They didn’t shrug. They didn’t send me away with paracetamol and a pat on the head. They listened, guided, reassured. They gave me tools including sound therapy, cognitive strategies, even brain retraining techniques to manage it. They reminded me I wasn’t alone. Six million people in the UK live with tinnitus. It’s not a life sentence, just a noisy neighbour people learn to handle.

So when I hear (excuse the pun) people bashing the NHS like it’s some kind of national embarrassment, I get really pissed off. Because here’s the thing. I’m tired of hearing the same old voices (often the ones who’ve chain-smoked their lungs into tar, drunk their liver dry and are on first name terms at their local takeaways) complaining about NHS failures while blaming foreigners for their problems. Foreigners, who, with some irony, are more likely to be saving their lives than taking drugs to counteract their debauched lifestyle. I’m no angel but when a doctor tells me something, I try to listen. In a country of graduates from the University of YouTube barstool bullshit, it appears some people know better.

A&E Experience

My partner works in A&E. She’ll tell you without blinking that it’s not “the immigrants” clogging up emergency departments. It’s people using A&E as a Wetherspoons afterparty. People who think self-care means cutting a kebab in half. People who treat the NHS like a fast-food joint for ailments they’ve actively cultivated themselves.

And meanwhile, the doctors, nurses, cleaners and porters, many of whom came to this country to work, not to sit in a waiting room with alcohol poisoning, are holding it all together.

Working With Foreigners

I’ve worked with people from all over Europe and beyond for thirty years. None of them moved here for free healthcare. They often get a better service at home because they are not as unhealthy as us. They came to earn a living, paying tax to prop up a health service that’s groaning under the weight of missed appointments, phantom injuries, drunken brawls, and entitlement. People who have paid a pittance in national insurance and are looking for first class treatment.

So when someone blames “the boats” for the NHS being on its knees, ask them how much they think it costs to clear up after a Saturday night punch-up outside town centre pubs. Then ask them how many national insurance stamps they’ve actually contributed, and how many they think a consultant anaesthetist from the Philippines is costing the country. The answer isn’t on the front page of The Daily Mail, it is a lack of basic education.

It’s What We Make of it

The NHS is what we make of it. And right now, a lot of people are treating it like shit. If more of us took responsibility for our own health and stopped using it like a bottomless buffet, we might still have the world-class service it was meant to be.

And tinnitus? Yeah, it’s still there. It’s annoying. But it doesn’t control me anymore. I sleep, walk the dog and try to do things to distract me from it. And I owe a lot of that to the NHS telling me to calm down and let my brain find ways to ignore it. If you start getting tinnitus, my only advice is to not panic, but you probably will. In its initial phases it’s claustrophobic but things do improve.

Ease off the Blame Game

So maybe let’s ease off the blame game and start educating people about why the NHS was formed by the Labour government all those years ago. As a safety net for people who got sick through no fault of their own. Not a get out of jail free card for people who can’t control their own behaviour.

As usual, we’re getting dragged down by the lowest common denominator in our society and it’s not an African on a plastic boat who might need a bit of treatment for dehydration. The cost of that in comparison to what the industrial scale abuse of the energy sets us back is, well…a refugee in the ocean.