Mr Martyn Parker

Mr Martyn Parker 2023-06-02 Person 5 5 0

Parker's Piece You've got to laugh when the angle grinder is whining behind you and you ask the grinning anaesthetist: "Is that the surgeon cutting through my broken bone to fit the steel ball?" His jolly Afro-beanie-clad head nods and you howl with laughter together. What fun. About 36 hours earlier I had left my friends at The Ship and the kerb came to meet me. It greeted the top of my femur with a crack and I knew the breakfall wasn't one of my best. As I reclined on the pavement by the river, a young couple brought a cushion and blanket and I lolled around for three and a half hours waiting for an ambulance. Laura and her girl comrade were fun when they eventually arrived. We chatted on the journey from the Fenland town of March to Peterborough hospital and then waited outside for four hours. Then I was in, amid trundling trolleys, X-rays, tags with a pronoun, contents of pockets and news that an operation was inevitable. And I would change my mind about not wanting painkillers. They got that right. The next 24 hours or so were painfully surreal. From behind my curtains, regularly injected, given pills, morphine mouthfuls and drips, I monitored the sound of helplessness. My three fellow femur fracturees screamed out involuntarily as the pain reminded them not to move or drop off to sleep. The noise from the 84-year-old whose forgetfulness had been abetted by a blow on the head to accompany his fracture, constantly called out for his wife and son in the darkness. A disjointed Becket-like exchange between two of the floating voices questioned where they were, whose house they were in. "Is it yours?" "I don't know." One of the Godot apostles eventually concluded that they had been arrested and were in a police cell. A brief, contented silence ensued in the restless kingdom of extreme pain, drugs and brain malfunction. Day came with more nursing angels, all with different accents - none of them British. And the agonising decision to get up. Lavinia the Romanian said it was too soon. I could have agreed and spent the rest of my life in bed, hiding from the unpredictable ambushes of agony. But that wasn't an option. I had to torture myself. Lavinia came up with a plan: she would hit me with her strongest drugs and I could lay down until she returned. Then I could try to sit up. This was the moment I had to choose between being a self-defined biological being born with a penis or a small unspecified rodent. When she came back I was sweating, half-standing and wobbling. "You can't do that," she chided. "But I am." And so it went: precarious shower, curtains, drips, needles, pills, morphine mouthwash... The next morning the smiling deputy anaesthetist appeared. An epidural anaesthetic was what Mr Parker, the surgeon, wanted to try. I would be awake throughout the procedure - but I'd be having a sandwich and cuppa ten minutes after surgery. Whatever the faults of the NHS are, they are not on Mr Parker's piece. His chief anaesthetist was concise and, like a matron of old, clearly in charge. The uncomfortable bit was transferring me to the operating table and bending me forward for the spinal injection. The lady was so professional and inspirational that I was on their team, willing them to lift me across and determined(ish) not to shout in torment. Then the mirth of the op and my clown-like co-conspirator confirming all my worst speculations about what was happening behind the blue curtain at my rear. I even guessed correctly when they were stitching my bone back into its cup final place. "He's floating the flesh." I said later that the operation had been a real hoot. Several people said I should tell Mr Parker that, because not many patients would have said so. I told my partner, a lawyer who deals in medical negligence. She hadn't heard of Mr Parker: "He must be very good." He is. Three days later, after some zimmer frame bravado, I was out - with arm crutches and a lavatory seat extension. And a visiting nurse knocking on my door to admire the professionalism of the dressing and incisions. We all know the NHS needs treatment. But some of it is demonstrably in the very best of health. With thanks to a real hip team, Pat Prentice

Mr Martyn Parker 2021-11-08 Person 5 5 0

I am in total disagreement with the last negative review. I only wish that I had seen it earlier so that my own review might have been more timely. I broke my femur over two years ago and had it repaired by Mr. Parker. He and his team treated me better than I dared hope and have even led to me recommending ( over a drink or two!) that other mountain bikers try to arrange their accidents within ambulance reach of Peterborough! I live in the North York Moors, far away from Peterborough but have nonetheless received telephone follow-up from Mr. Parker’s team. I often try to imagine this happening with my own local health authority, but, no…..my imagination just isn’t up to that.

Mr Martyn Parker 2019-08-17 Person 1 5 0

He did not listen he didn’t care how much pain my mother was in he didn’t try to manage her pain all he wanted to do was get her out ASAP Nhs is not about Turing beds it’s should be helping people back to recovery