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How hospital care fails disabled bodies

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.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Trust me, I’m a patient

Artist Rachel Rowan Olive is an expert in the way her mental health condition affects her. Here she explains how it helps if doctors understand that.

Why some patients make my heart sink

Instead of getting nowhere with certain demanding, manipulative patients, our anonymous GP wonders if there’s a way to help them.

The give and take of caring

Kate Mosse argues that how we define ‘care’ matters, and explores the reciprocity of caring and being cared for.

How the mental health system fails Black people

Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.

The solidarity of sickness

Visiting an injured friend in hospital prompts writer Sinéad Gleeson to reflect on the instant rapport forged between compatriots in the kingdom of the sick.

How my wheelchair changed my life

A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.

Hands-on healthcare

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.

Documents of my breath

Swati Joshi’s childhood bronchitis meant that she couldn’t imagine being able to breathe easily. As an adult, she chronicles her recovery through artworks created using bubbles and her breath.

Vaccinating a community, saving lives

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.

A doctor, his community and coronavirus

Reflecting on his experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, GP Gavin Francis vividly recalls a home visit to a man stricken with breathing difficulties.

Why we need to decolonise healthcare

In this extract from ‘Divided’, Annabel Sowemimo describes the way her nana’s stroke and hospitalisation heightened her awareness of the need for us all to advocate for the health of others.

Questioning the psychoanalyst

Maggie Robbins gives her personal take on the common misconceptions around her field of work.

When doctors get sick

Feeling guilty about developing a health problem, our anonymous GP contemplates how the system could better support doctors when they’re sick.

The blight of the ballooning blood vessels

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.

Why the NHS is worth saving

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.

How your hairdresser could save your life

Barbers and hairdressers have a unique view of us – one that means they can spot potentially dangerous health problems. Find out how buzzcuts can lead to blood-pressure checks, and dip-dyes show the way to the dermatologist.

Picturing mental health

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.

The search for a cure for endometriosis

Discover how a white American doctor’s experimental operations on black female slaves laid the foundations for modern gynaecological surgery.

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me

Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.

When depression is worse than physical illness

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.

Healing hearts and saving lives

Cardiology is a prestigious specialism, known for its life-saving, heroic staff. But a doctor’s training eventually reveals other, less obvious ways to save lives.