They should have used HVC

Stories of struggles to get to medical appointments, where a voluntary care group might have been able to help.

 

Have Bus Pass - Will Travel.

by Hester Whittle (one of Headley Voluntary Care's regular patients who decided to have an adventure one day.)

I was grateful when, in October last year, I got an offer from the Grayshott GP Surgery - a Saturday afternoon appointment for Covid and Flu injections.

Having recently given up driving, I persuaded a friend to join me in using our recently acquired bus passes to make the journey.  As a confident, independent, world traveller, I set about planning the trip.

The surgery required me to present myself early in the afternoon so I decided that, rather than risk catching the 2.07 pm bus, we would leave Headley at 11.07 in the morning.  We duly joined the other two passengers on the bus and thoroughly enjoyed the six minutes it took to reach Grayshott.  An interesting journey by bus - you see so much more of the countryside, I enthused - and we are now in such good time that we can enjoy a leisurely lunch for two hours.

Lunch completed, we arrived at the surgery and all went well, and I emerged after a jab in each arm, ready to catch the mid-afternoon bus home.  Alas, as we reached the bus stop we realised that we had missed that bus and that the next one was at twenty minutes to five.

"No problem", I declared, "we'll have a leisurely afternoon tea."

We followed tea with a lengthy perusal of the shop windows of a near-deserted Grayshott and eventually reached the bus shelter.  The autumn afternoon had become chilly and it was beginning to rain.  We looked forward to the six-minute journey home.

Twenty minutes later, no bus had arrived and I used my torch on my phone to refer back to the timetable.  As I peered into the gloom my phone flickered and died but I briefly discerned the italics heading the column NS - No Service on Saturday.

My phone was lifeless so there was nothing for two intrepid travellers to do but head for the pub and seek solace in two large glasses of Merlot.

The kindly young barman used his phone to summon a taxi - in this case from the taxi rank at Haslemere Station.

Later that evening as I counted notes into the palm of the taxi driver and gratefully entered my front door, I reflected.

Two pensioners 'popping' up to Grayshott from Headley Down had taken over seven hours.  I rested my sore arms as I took to my bed that evening and offered a fervent prayer for the future.

"THANK GOD FOR HEADLEY VOLUNTARY CARE"

(Note from the Editor - 

Hester recently celebrated her 90th birthday.)