hospital

Why there is more Omicron than we know

5 December 2021 11:03 pm

Yesterday the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced it had identified another 26 Omicron cases, and the total number of…

The joy of French hospital food

27 November 2021 9:00 am

After checking me in, the receptionist, who was wearing an overcoat, said: ‘There is no heating in the hotel. The…

The art of negotiating with French nurses

12 June 2021 9:00 am

‘Ça va, Monsieur Clarke?’ said a nurse when he noticed I was stirring. It was an effort to speak. ‘Thirsty,’…

The curse of surgical stockings

5 June 2021 9:00 am

The porter rolled me off the trolley and on to the bed, wished me a good day and departed. My…

My clairvoyant GP

1 May 2021 9:00 am

‘Willie or bum?’ I said to Catriona on the motorway. Everything in my recent medical career has been introduced via…

The beauty of French nurses

6 March 2021 9:00 am

I was supine on the slab and a nurse was rigging me up via wires and tubes to machines and…

The magic of Anthony Powell

19 December 2020 9:00 am

Every few years I’ve picked up one or other of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time series…

Children who died of Covid-19 were already seriously ill, new study shows

28 August 2020 10:33 pm

It has been clear from the start of the Covid-19 crisis – from Wuhan’s experience, before cases were confirmed in…

In praise of French doctors

9 May 2020 9:00 am

They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks

Is the PM an example of why those with Covid-19 should be hospitalised earlier?

4 May 2020 12:25 am

There is so much to ponder in the prime minister’s interview about how Covid-19 almost killed him. But, in respect…

I was relishing the lockdown a week ago, but now I need urgent hospital treatment

11 April 2020 9:00 am

In France the rule for going for a walk stipulates an hour in duration or a kilometre in distance. We…

From a war-zone A&E to hellhole wards, my dispiriting week in an NHS hospital

27 January 2018 9:00 am

I am in a good position to report from the NHS frontline, having been in hospital with pneumonia for just…

What the world looked like after my brain haemorrhage

28 May 2016 9:00 am

When your mind suddenly goes wonky, you may be the one person who doesn’t realise that there is something wrong…

A timely reminder of what junior doctors actually do – and it's not pleasant

16 April 2016 9:00 am

All this week Radio Five Live has been giving us an insight into what it is like not just to…

My surreal Christmas in hospital with a dangerously ill child

12 December 2015 9:00 am

My surreal Christmas in hospital with a dangerously ill child

It's not just Ashya King's parents who the authorities despise

6 September 2014 9:00 am

My first act upon returning from my holiday was to sign the online petition to have the supremely irritating children’s…

Even near the front line, there were flowers on the ward

6 September 2014 9:00 am

It’s the tub of bright red geraniums at the heart of the picture that startles. How did anyone have time…

Visiting Burgundy from my hospital bed

16 August 2014 9:00 am

There have been some splendid rumours about my health. According to the most exotic, I was cas-evacked from a hill…

Spectator letters: In defence of women ministers, Handel and lefty sex

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Give the women a chance Sir: Melissa Kite’s article about the reshuffle seems downright unfair (‘A misogynistic reshuffle’, 19 July). Whatever…

A night on a hospital ward with Paddy Leigh Fermor

15 March 2014 9:00 am

The catheter stung exquisitely when I lay down. So I stood up. All night I stood by my hospital bed,…

I’m hoping and praying for a continuation of potency

8 March 2014 9:00 am

I’ve had a medical procedure that is ‘likely’ to leave me impotent. A nurse is coming around dishing out Tramadol,…

Did Hurricane Katrina have an angel of mercy — or an angel of death? 

15 February 2014 9:00 am

On 28 August 2005 — Sheri Fink’s Day One — Hurricane Katrina reached New Orleans. The National Weather Service warned…

Martin Vander Weyer: In my hospital bed, I saw the future of the NHS

4 January 2014 9:00 am

I blamed the pheasant casserole, but I did it an injustice. Its only contribution to the drama behind my disappearance…

Matthew Parris: I've been living with a miracle for 60 years

16 November 2013 9:00 am

This is probably the most self-indulgent column I’ve written. I hope not to make a habit of it. It’s an…