Fellow blogger Clive over at Take it Easy reminded me that this week is Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW).
I’d like to dedicate this blog to our overworked GPs. When at work this morning I heard that a GP in our local area had committed suicide, due to stress. He was only in his forties, not much older than my son, but he had been found dead at home. This is not new, as back in the 1970s a GP in the practice I attended as a teenager took her own life. Her husband, also a GP in the same practice, suffered from alcoholism.
There is a shortage of GPs here in England. The doctors who have not taken early retirement are left having to see an increasing number of patients, many with complicated diagnoses that might take more than the allotted ten minutes to deal with. This causes the waiting room to fill up with frustrated and angry patients, who might not be in the best frame of mind when their turn eventually comes around.
In my own GP practice it is very difficult to obtain an appointment; patients can spend much time on the phone trying to get through to the receptionist, which can only exacerbate any mental health problems they might already suffer from. Luckily I haven’t needed to see a GP for some time now, but if I did need an appointment and wasn’t on my deathbed, I’d jettison the phone and instead drive to the surgery early in the morning then stand outside and wait for the doors to open.
Yes, some patients’ problems can be caused by smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, overeating and other bad lifestyle choices, and an unwillingness to help themselves. However, GPs cannot just prescribe a pill to take it all away. Some patients will return multiple times to their GP, when in reality all they need to do is lose weight, exercise, drink less alcohol, and eat a healthy diet. Others feel lonely and unloved and need their GP as a source of comfort. Some want antibiotics for a virus (which will have no effect), and others want sick notes to try and get another week or two off work. All these take up appointments which genuinely sick people need, but GPs see everyone who comes to them and are not allowed to discriminate.
So… here’s to the stressed-out GPs. I know how hard you all have to work. As a teenager I always wanted to be a doctor, but now I’m rather glad I’m not!
Stevie Turner 
Lovely tribute to doctors Stevie. Yes, same here, our medical system is becoming very difficult here too, they are overworked and stressed to the max. It wouldn’t surprise me if they needed vices to carry on. Not dissimilar to police, who many are alcoholics due to what they’ve seen and endured. The world is so fragile right now. 😦 xx
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Yes. Another blogger also answered this post to say he knew of doctors taking opioids or uppers to keep going. x
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This does not surprise as we are all human and have our breaking points – especially under pressuring circumstances. xx
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Hi Stevie, all professional people seem to be hugely overworked. Gone are the days of lunch breaks and 9am to 5pm. I said to my husband yesterday, that Gen X won’t achieve the long lives of previous generations because we have way to much stress. There are no laws to protect people like us.
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Very true. Us Boomers had it easier, I think.
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The work expectations were different and there were boundaries around work hours. Cell phones and email have moved those boundaries and people feel they need to be available all the time.
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Yes, Sam’s niece says exactly that.
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When I started in the London Ambulance Service, it was already well-known that doctors were well above the national average for alcoholism, smoking-related issues, and suicide. That applied to hospital doctors, as well as GPs.
I knew doctors in London hospitals who were permanently exhausted; with a poor diet, lack of sleep, and often self-medicatiing on opiates or uppers too. Since then the pressures on them have doubled, so it is no surprise to hear that news from you, Stevie.
Best wishes, Pete.
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When I read ‘This is Going to Hurt’ by Adam Kay, I realised why he had left the medical profession. It’s a wonder junior doctors make it through to consultants.
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Did you watch the TV series of that? It was wonderful. Ben Wishaw was outstanding.
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Yes, I did. So sad how the junior doctors are treated, as though they never need any sleep.
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GPs over here have opted to eliminate stress by going “concierge”. That is, charging more for something we should be getting anyway. @ grand a year more. What’s causing Dr and patient stress over here is the Dr. Conglomerate colluding with the insurance companies to herd ’em in and herd ’em out. 5 mins, one issue and if you aren’t on death’s doorstep you get fobbed off to a graduated yesterday NP. I appreciate they are overworked and stressed. Part of that problem might be the need for attention addiction, running to the Doc for a papercut or a sneeze which is clogging the system, but if your knee is the size of a grapefruit or you need a professional opinion and referral for it you should be able to get in to see your doctor in less than three weeks. Which is why I go to the “I’m not dying yet” private care center to get checked out for anything less than broken bone. I even hit them up when I failed a Covid test, as I could get a televisit with an NP in two days but no confirmation test, but Primacare could see me in 45 minutes. However personal foibles like self medication for “stress” and a subsequent suicide fall more into failure to launch mental health access than a failure of the system.
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Yes, the attention addiction wastes a lot of GP appointments. I wonder how many patients over here would phone for an appointment if they had to pay for it?
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I’m not sure it would matter unless the price was pretty steep. What’s choking us is the flood of uninsured “refugees” and “students” going to the emergency room for a paper cut, lousy diet choices, or a colicy baby. The doctor aggregators (associations) are jammed up the same way the airlines are, booking more seats than they have available. All the specialists ask Who is your primary care physician? Who knows? Haven’t seen him in person since 2017.
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Yes, not many people have medical insurance here, and so the NHS is crumbling. The world and his wife turn up at A&E.
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Thank you for the link, Stevie. The wider the message is spread the better. Terribly sad about that local GP – we undervalue them, I think.
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They are so overworked.
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You make the point well in this piece. Some people really do need to consider whether they are simply wasting GPs’ valuable time.
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Yes indeed.
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