Why I shall be eternally grateful to the staff of Queen Elizabeth University Hospital – Ewan Aitken

A freak event had led to significant internal bleeding, causing a huge drop in my blood pressure and a haematoma, and I was being rushed to the city’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to be admitted to its high-dependency unit where I stayed for six days followed by two days on an ordinary ward.

It was scary rollercoaster. But I want first to give my grateful and heartfelt thanks to the staff of high-dependency ward one and those in orthopaedics 10c. These were very difficult days for me and my family. Their humanity and professionalism saw us through.

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No awkwardness or embarrassment

I was treated with incredible kindness, care and compassion as well as huge professional skill and wisdom. The latter two qualities are absolutely necessary in circumstances like these but have the biggest impact when combined with the first three.

When you are incapacitated, depending on strangers to help you with the most basic of tasks and bodily functions, life could be full of awkwardness and embarrassment. It wasn’t just the care elements, but the places on my body where the consequences of what had happened to me had manifested themselves. Their approach meant I never once felt either emotion and could focus instead on rest and recovery.

It was a real lesson for me. Shaped by a myriad of personal and social experiences, we all feel different about our bodies, especially in moments of vulnerability and in the sight of people we don’t know. In the situation I was in, I realised I needed to let all those conflicting emotions go and simply let these wonderful people do their job.

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NHS was there for me

As I slowly recovered, I saw how transformation is much more about tiny wins than big victories. I couldn’t eat for two days. Managing to consume half a yogurt on the third day gave me a boost, a belief things would get better, a far greater benefit than any nutritional value.

The same day, managing to get out of bed and walk the length of the ward, albeit with a Zimmer, had a similar impact. It wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I knew getting there was now more possible. Focusing on what’s been achieved, no matter how small, rather than what we’ve yet to achieve, means we take a positive mindset onto the next step, rather than being held back by a sense of failure because we’ve not yet arrived.

There were and will always be things which the NHS could improve. But when I needed it, it was there for me, and I will be forever grateful. The arguments about reform and improvement of the NHS are often about money and we can’t and shouldn’t avoid talking about money. Not just more of it but how we could use it better.

If we invest in its people and a culture, not of transactions but of relationships, support, care, compassion and the skills of those people, this precious gift that we have can continue to be a hallmark of a society where everyone can get the help they require in their time of need.

Ewan Aitken is a former charity chief executive and Labour politician