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STRAIGHT TO THE POINT by Sue Neal |
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Why is no-one in Stoke Newington ever ill? I mean, sick, crook, uncle Dick, under the weather? Pass beyond the bounds of N16 and people have bog standard colds, flu, infections of this and boils on that. They go to the doc, pick up a prescription, take it to the chemists and whack back the old pharmaceuticals. Result - 9 times out of 10 - give or take a week or two, and they’re better. But in Stokey we have wheat allergies, gluten intolerances, unbalanced chakras and misaligned meridian lines. Utter the word ‘antibiotics’ in mixed company and everyone reacts like you’ve screamed ‘Fuck’ in church. So off we trot to this reiki guru or rolfing merchant, re-birthing counsellor or homicidal homeopath to have pins stuck in us on a weekly basis for the next two years, to be dosed with essence of elderflower and ruthlessly eliminate from our diet anything which smacks of pure enjoyment. None of this fashionable voodoo has scientifically proved to be of any use whatsoever. But sod trials and licenses. We’re oh so happy to pay £30 an hour to someone who six months ago was probably behind the till at Safeways or selling car insurance until they did a quick five week course at the North London Alternative Centre. We can’t entrust our health to the one down the road with a minimum 6 years clinical practice plus stringent exam boards, waiting to cure us for free. And, Oh My God!, immunisation. The rows I’ve had about that one. I have friends in Stoke Newington who’ve driven their poor bloody children half way round the Continent to get single jabs of this and that - and I’m not just talking the latest MMR controversy. There are kids wandering around Clissold Park who have more bugs than the Porton Down germ warfare centre and have never seen a doctor’s needle or sugar lump in their lives. They could start a full scale measles outbreak by just looking in your direction. ‘Do you want to plunge us back into the Middle Ages?,’ I enquire of their doting, hand-wringing parents. Answer usually comes there none. Many of these children have been born in the Victorian corniched front room on the purple futon with half the neighbourhood looking on, blowing flutes and strumming guitars extremely badly. Apart, that is, from the ones who emerge in the very nick of time after an emergency Caesarian in the back of an ambulance screeching its way into the Homerton Hospital car park. Good People, there are simply some medical matters when you just have to call out the professionals.
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