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A wee while back, I spent a couple of nights in hospital. Nothing serious, a gastric problem.

The medical and nursing treatment was excellent. The journey of care, as I believe it is occasionally known, less so.

The ward was cluttered and crowded. Information was sporadic and, sometimes, contradictory. It was difficult to discern who was in charge of care provision.

Then there was the cabaret. One patient was apparently anxious to resume his maritime career. He told us, repeatedly and loudly, that he had to get back to the islands to rejoin his boat. He took especial care to stress this point during the middle of the night, lest we might doze off and miss something.

It might have been Pinteresque - a little like the character keen to get to Sidcup to collect his papers. Unaccountably, however, my dramatic sensitivities were a little dulled. Lack of sleep, perhaps.

Brutes that we were, we, his fellow patients, cheered inwardly when, finally, he did a runner, doubtless in search of his vessel. However, the police, with a greater sense of duty than mercy, picked him up close by and returned him to our company. The lamentations began again.

I thought of this as I heard Nicola Sturgeon on the wireless this morning making a distinction between medical/nursing treatment and the wider provision of care. The latter, she felt, had flaws.

And what, exactly, was she discussing? The fact that a for seven hours. Seven - count them - hours. Two meals went by. The deceased remained in situ.

For pity's sake, has it come to this? Spare us the soothing jargon, please. Full inquiry, must never happen again, errors in procedure. A corpse was left lying beside sick people. For seven hours.
The justification? The family of the deceased, to whom all sympathy, apparently wanted the body left in the ward to allow one relative time to get to the hospital.

Again, sympathy. But did no-one consider the competing interests of the other patients and their families? Rights are not absolute, even in death. They must be balanced with the rights of others. Did no-one at the hospital think that, on balance, it was preferable to say no to this request?

Even after the relative arrived, there was a further delay in moving the body. To repeat, a corpse lay in a hospital ward for seven hours. Forget Pinter. This is straight from Gogol. Give me strength.

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