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  • Article
  • Article

How hospital care fails disabled bodies

| Jamie HaleCamilla Greenwell

Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.

  • Article
  • Article

Hands-on healthcare

| Ella Nørgaard MortonThomas S G Farnetti

A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.

  • Article
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Lying low for lockdown and beyond

| Liz CarrCarrie Ravenscroft

For Liz Carr the chances of catching Covid-19 are the same as for anyone else, but as a Disabled person she's at much greater risk of not getting the treatment she needs if she falls ill.

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The blight of the ballooning blood vessels

| Thomas MorrisEmily Evans

In 1817 an emergency operation on a London porter was hailed a ‘success’ despite the patient’s swift demise. Find out how this case became a landmark in vascular surgery.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Why the NHS is worth saving

| Gavin FrancisJames Glossop

In this extract from his latest book, ‘Free For All’, Dr Gavin Francis poses challenging questions to be addressed if a health service that’s free for all at the point of use is to remain possible.

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  • Article

Is it really OK to not be OK?

| James DownsMafalda Rakoš

Our mental healthcare system is still the poor relation of services that treat physical illness, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on this situation. Campaigner James Downs argues for fundamental change.

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  • Article

Hysteria

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.

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  • Article

Vaccinating a community, saving lives

| Hannah DinesRobin Hammond

Doctor Jane Harvey always goes the extra mile to care for her patients, and in recent months that’s extended to huge efforts to save lives with her coronavirus vaccination push.

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When depression is worse than physical illness

| Elly Aylwin-FosterJohn Miers

Chronic physical illnesses can be accompanied by troubling depressive symptoms. Elly Aylwin-Foster urges doctors to treat every aspect of her condition with the same care.

  • Article
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The boundaries that shape my writing

| Caroline ButterwickKimberley Burrows

While writing about her life can be enormously helpful, Caroline Butterwick needs to regularly reassess her boundaries. Here she explores the line between what’s public and what’s private, and how porous that can be.

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  • Article

Epidemic threats and racist legacies

| Jacob Steere-WilliamsDark Matter

Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.

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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

| Anna Faherty

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.