The Duke's House and the NHS

We had a great English weekend last weekend, enjoying the beautiful grounds of Chatsworth House, a current residence of a Duke and Duchess, and subsequently a visit to the hospital and a first hand exposure to the National Health Service (NHS). The two pictures here showing the grounds and the inside of Chatsworth House speak for themselves. The acres of grounds were incredible, the manor immense, and the insides stunningly ornate.



While wrapping up our walk across the many gardens, my dad, who was visiting, slipped on a stone step and put a gash on his forehead. Socialized medicine to the recue - would it be a good or bad experience? First, one of the tour guides of Chatsworth House, and a former medical assistant, met us at the place of injury and did a thorough examination and completely dressed the wound. He didn't think a visit to the hospital was required, but also thought a second opinion would be proper.



After driving back to Sheffield (we bought a 1998 Peugeot and we drive it to visit the countryside) I took my dad to the local hospital. We walked into the "Minor Injury" unit (doesn't that make sense!) at about 6pm, walked right up to the reception desk, gave my dad's name and my local address and phone number, then we had a seat in the waiting room. Being socialized medicine, we should have had to wait for hours if not days, but within 10 minutes, we were called to a room by a nurse to be seen. My dad sat down and immediately was evaluated, original diagnosis confirmed, and new dressing applied. Instructions were given for proper caring of the injury as well as what to look out for if things turned unexpectedly worse. Ten minutes later we were done with the nurse, we waved good bye to the receptionist, and we went home.

There was only one thing missing from this whole thing. There was never any discussion about money, insurance, ability to pay, or anything. There was an injury and it was cared for. That was it. How anyone can be against a system like this is beyond me.

Educational Resolution

One month in, with the admissions process ancient history, I am happy to report that the kids are all enjoying their respective schools. Tala's school, a humongous combined middle and high school had a wonderful performance today called "Taste of Asia". Her school really values the arts so they decided to suspend all required classes for Year 7 students (her year) for two days and instead teach all the students about various aspects of Asian dance, stories, music, art and drama. After two days of intense instruction and engagement, the students put on an hour's worth of performances in all these areas from China, Indonesia, and India. It was really an incredible statement of the value of arts education.

Noah and Nissa all of lots of friends with a chorus of kids saying hi and bye in the morning arrival and afternoon departure. The boys are a bit rougher here than back home, so Noah has taken some time to figure out the male pecking order and how to play without getting run over. Nissa came home today with a school-wide award for just being a positive influence on the school!

Academically, we were afraid the kids would be a bit behind their local counterpart, but so far it is the opposite. Homework is light to non-existent, which is a pleasant change for us the parents. Noah begs for homework, but instead we just go to the park and work on his football skills.

So all is good with schools and we still don't know how things worked out, but we are glad they did. The picture on this entry is of the playing field that is adjacent to the kids two schools, and a third middle school. About 3,500 kids descend on these three schools each day, which is fun to watch.