Were military hospitals that good?
In the mid 1990s, I collapsed during a morning brief at Lyneham and was immediately transported to RAF Hospital Wroughton. I was initially diagnosed with a cardiac problem but a battery of tests (at PMH Swindon) eventually revealed that I had caught a rather nasty illness from contaminated food. I was moved into Isolation and Barrier Nursed. This proved to be a blessing; my time on the general ward (a 'Nightingale' ward) was characterised by demented geriatrics screaming during the night and on one occasion flinging sh!t around. But enough of Master Aircrew.
The SHO was a particularly rude South African woman and the meals were dished out by a spiteful old hag who presumed to know best and rationed the high-energy/high calorie diet that I was on. Meals, IIRC, were hot-boxed in from PMH Swindon - and not particularly palatable. I was sustained for my three weeks in isolation with butty-boxes of chocolate and Danish pastries brought up (and left at a discrete distance) by colleagues from work. Welfare interest from the staff was largely non-existant although I did receive two visits from an old dear (from SSAFA?) dishing out dog-eared magazines (The People's Friend and Readers' Digest) and 'Sunday School Prize' books in an effort to alleviate the boredom. It was stark contrast with my experience of the US Navy Hospital in Gricingnano, Napoli, where the facilites wer efantastic and the staff could not do enough to make the stay a pleasant one.
I most definitely support Military staffed wards for our Service personnel but we can't go back to our elderly and now inappropriatemilitary hosptials of the past that suffered from years of under-investment and neglect (the Scanner block at Wroughton notwithstanding).
NZWP