Well I think that given that I’m in an inner city area it’s better than I anticipated especially with the GP I have now. I say, he does express sympathy and she does give you whatever tests you ask for.
Ok so your expectations were lower?
Well yes especially after the first man. In fact I tried two GPs in the area. The first one who wouldn’t look at my back and then. I went along to another one and that one closed down shortly afterwards because the doctor was struck off and it was being run by a practice nurse in fact who was quite good so then having had this experience I wrote to the Health Authority and said I’d heard of this practice which is all female so I said that I needed to go somewhere where they were all female. So they could have draw whatever conclusions they want from that. So I went to see the practice and they said, “Well we’re full up but if you write to them they, they might impose you on us.” Which they did so I got that quite quickly.
So you identified this practice?
Yes friends who’d being going there and they said it was an all female practice and they were very nice. So I went there and I usually. I don’t go more than once a year and so far I’ve usually seen the same doctor. Once I didn’t, I saw one of the other doctors who was equally charming and sympathetic.
So why an all female practice?
Because I feel whenever I’ve done anything like dentists and eyesight, whenever I have to do with males they look at your age and discount you. They treat you like an old lady. And the women are like seeing a school friend. I feel more comfortable. I didn’t have this experience in France. I always had male doctors and I always found them to have a different attitude towards women. Women are finished once they’re getting older here whereas the French doctor and no doubt a Spanish one will flirt with a woman of 100 and say, “Oh no we can’t have that, no that doesn’t look nice. You know you’re still a woman.”
Here no. I feel that strongly actually which is one of the reasons I’m not keen about mentioning my age and things. But once people see it written down you’re written off. But the continental thing, I mean most countries in the world you’re a woman. People can still treat you like a woman. Treat you as if you might be attractive even older. It is a bit of a joke but here it would be called harassment. So a very different point of view. But I’m not comfortable dealing with men in this country.
