Few readers of these pages will be unaware of the flurry of excitement over the Shepperton Medical Centre. And as the world opens up to renewed human contacts it is good that your Residents Association is able to offer an Open Meeting on Tuesday 21st September in the Village Hall of Shepperton when members of the Practice will answer your questions on developments and changes. It is probable that even without the pandemic the familiar ways of working would have had to adjust, as our population becomes increasingly elderly and career options change beyond recognition. Those younger than I might find it hard to think that once you could work your entire life for a single employer, as loyal to you as you were to your firm or institution; nowadays this would be a rare oddity even in Japan, the beacon of professional stability.
Well, Covid 19 has accelerated all this with exhaustion and burn-out. Only those working in the Health Service can really know the stress, the toll which the disease has inflicted on those caring for patients. This has been made worse by the vicious irresponsibility of social media trolls, oh world wide but even in our quiet village too. I don’t just mean the absurdities of the anti-vaccine brigade: malice and inflammatory postings are much more widespread than that.
Naturally, the evening in our Village Hall will be tranquil and courteous: we have traditions to uphold in Shepperton. Reviving our Open Meetings after over 18 months is a welcome return to normality, and soothing the animation over our Medical Centre can be another strand in that return. If you would like to contact me before then, write to peter.j.hughes@protonmail.ch as secretary of the Patient Participatory Group.