'My wait in casualty'

Once upon a time you could expect a hospital visit only if you were an in-patient. But, as I have just discovered, one of the great innovations of the NHS is that you now get visits from family and friends when you are an outpatient in casualty. They bring you all the usual - grapes, chocolates, magazines - but, just as in rural India, they also bring you all your meals. They organise a system to ensure that you won't get lonely. And they keep you posted about news in the outside world.

I work for Channel 4, so when I had to go to casualty after a fall, I thought it was at least a good opportunity to check if TV programmes reflected real life. I arrived at the Whittington Hospital in Archway - the very place poor Rose Addis, 94, spent three days - at 7.50am on Sunday.

I was seen almost immediately by a nurse. I explained that one of my legs didn't bend much following a severe injury many years previously, but that on going downstairs that morning, I had slipped and twisted my knee backwards tearing through the old injury. I was now unable to walk.

She noted the details and informed me I could expect to wait eight hours. "Eight hours? That can't be true," exclaimed my Slovakian au pair, who was with me. "Is it a joke?" I asked her how long one would expect to wait in such circumstances back in Slovakia. Ten minutes, she said.

We agreed she should return home with my daughter and I settled down to wait. Casualty was pretty empty, except for a few sleeping drunks. At around 9am, they got up and wandered out and the day's cases trickled in. Even I could tell that many didn't seem that sick. As I perceived each one to be a potential rival in the queue, I took a strong interest in their conditions. One of the first told the nurse that he felt dizzy when he woke up in the mornings. I was outraged that this man - who could, I reasoned, easily have gone to his GP - might leapfrog over me.

A new wave of drunks arrived. These should perhaps have annoyed me but several of them were so sad. A young woman kept falling to the floor and being ordered back onto her chair by a nurse. In her sleep, she cried out in terrible anguish.

But I had other problems. My au pair had managed to find a wheelchair for me but I was now ordered to give it up to a pregnant woman. I could hardly say no. So, when I could wait no longer, I had to hop to the toilet - not a particularly good idea if my leg turned out to be broken.

The toilet was disgusting. A humorous note on the wall informed me that it would next be cleaned on 18 January at 8am - two days earlier. It also invited me to ring a special number if I wanted to complain that the toilet was dirty. There was dirt in every crack.

A little later, my daughter and her au pair returned. I had food, newspapers, a notebook to record my experiences, someone to lean on to go to the toilet. My daughter said she would like to go and buy me some flowers. And all around us were people also receiving visits. I've been in hospital a lot (with the bad leg) and it really did feel just like visiting hour.

A young woman went up to complain about the eight-hour wait. She was told it was now a 10-hour wait.

But then, a miracle. A mere four hours after my arrival, a doctor entered the waiting room and called out my name. I was one of the chosen! I must really be sick! This was proof for all to see that I was not one of the slackers. To be seen in a mere four hours! The other knee case congratulated me sadly and I passed into the other world beyond the swing doors.

I hopped into a room and he examined my leg. He poked and prodded. The pain was excruciating. He said my leg was badly hurt. He handed me one crutch and told me to go to x-ray.

After that, I was sent to hop back to sit next to the old man in pyjamas. It was now 1pm. He told me he'd been waiting for an ambulance since 4am. I said my friend would give him a lift home - but I think he was embarrassed to travel in a car with two women in his pyjamas. He was 87.

The nice young doctor was now looking at my x-rays on a screen in the waiting area. The doctor came over and told me - and the 87-year-old man waiting for the ambulance - that my leg wasn't broken. I would be bandaged up and could go home. He said I should be under the care of an orthopaedic surgeon and should go to my GP in the next few days and ask her to arrange an appointment for as soon as possible. Then a nurse bandaged me up and gave me two crutches - a mark accepted in Lourdes, and other centres of the sick and lame, as a sign that you are not pulling a fast one. And I was a free woman once again.