The Hospital - Sexual Health for the Socially Hopeless

So. First ever post since I set this blog up, er, a year ago. I’ve been busy. Not really. Anyway, I shall continue the better-late-than-never theme by starting with a short observational piece/rant about the return of Channel 4’s marvellous documentary series, The Hospital. I know it’s been on for weeks already, but what with me being on holiday, coupled with my obsession for storing episodes up so I can treat myself to a marathon session, I’ve only just got round to watching it.

So, with a steaming bowl of sweetcorn and pancetta chowder at the ready, on goes 4od and I settle down for an afternoon of anticipated tut-tutting at the general state of the British public. It doesn’t disappoint. Hello Chelsea and Westminster Sexual Health Clinic. It only takes the opening montage of scabby penis and manky minky shots to assure me that chowder was indeed an inadvisable lunch choice.

Still, I’m sure the young people benefiting from this excellent NHS clinic are appreciative and respectful of its existence when they find themselves in a spot of bother and require help (free of charge)? Oh. It would appear not. ‘I was, like, doing loads of stuff so I couldn’t go,’ says one 14 year old from under her duvet, when asked why she hadn’t bothered to turn up for her sexual health screening. Mature enough to have sex, but yet to learn how to hold a phone and cancel an appointment are we? I see. As for the mother, I think the sentence ‘I didn’t even know she was having sexually intercourse’ just about sums her up.

Of course there are plenty who do attend their appointments and are enormously pleased with the service. One gentleman so much so that he even offered the doctor a spin on his newly disinfected penis by way of thanks. Socially retarded? Steady on. She had only spent the past hour removing his genital warts, after all.

Some patients even visit the clinic in couples (romance, dead?), like Mr ‘Catalogue Model’ with the unfortunate set of teeth and his equally gormless one night stand. ‘We had sex last night, dint we? So now we both need checking out,’ he announces, sauntering through reception, upturned collar and pattern-shaved head leaving him looking more East 17 circa 1993 than Noughties bad boy. Condom? Don’t be absurd. ‘Well I’m 21 and I drink alcohol, what can I say?’ Probably best to leave it at that. Wouldn’t want you to use all the words in your limited vocabulary in one day, would we. I am 22 and also drink alcohol, yet have managed to successfully avoid crabs, syphilis and the rest. Perhaps his problem is not being young, but being a moron?

For some, the sexual health clinic is like a home from home. One charming individual who’s had Chlamydia before and has recently treated himself to a second helping boasts shamelessly that he’s slept with more women than he can remember in the past three months and wouldn’t even recognise them if they passed him on the street. Excellent news for their next sexual partners. How this gremlin managed to bed anyone at all is a complete mystery to me, but that’s another matter. The fact is he wears his Chlamydia like a badge of honour. ‘When I first got it, everyone had it. If you didn’t have it you were boring. When I found out I’d got it, I was like whoo-hoo! I haven’t learnt my lesson though. Well, I am male,’ he sniggers.

Good. Great. Excellent. Well, now we’ve established that the majority of these diseased idiots couldn’t care less what they’ve got or who they caught it from, perhaps we could load them all onto some form of large vessel and ship them off to a remote island, where they can spend their days infecting one another and crab fishing. They’ll be in abundance, after all. And the rest of us? Well, we’ll be benefiting from an NHS that’s pouring money into worthwhile causes and treating people who deserve it, of course.