1950 Love is the Drug - Sex Stories

1950 Love is the Drug

... care to both rich and poor alike, regardless of what they paid. Nobody was more pleased than Dr Craddock when, in 1948, universal health care was introduced. Not only did it mean that he got remunerated for every patient on his books but that every person that had refused to accept treatment that they couldn't pay for, now sought the healthcare they needed.

Previously, Doctor Andrew Craddock had been a no-nonsense one-man band. He took care of the practice's administration, updating patient records as he went along. Every morning he would open the doors to his waiting room, patients would simply wander in and sit until he called, "Who's next?"

By this time everybody had discussed everybody else's ailments and those that the consensus deemed required urgent treatment were given the instruction, "You'd better go next dear."

The good doctor took telephone calls in the middle of consultations. The patient didn't seem to mind being left with themselves in a state of undress while Dr Craddock ascertained if the caller should come into surgery or if the doctor needed to make a home visit.

Home visits were conducted in the afternoon.

With the advert of the National Health Service, it soon became clear to Andrew that his old ways wouldn't suit the new ways. More patients meant more work. Not just medical but administrative. If the Ministry of Health were paying they wanted forms filled in.

Did he need a practice nurse or a receptionist? Or both?

Dr Craddock was ...

... finding that there were too many patients still sitting in his waiting room at the end of his morning surgery. This delayed his home visits.

There were now too many home visits, most of which were given over to minor ailments that a nurse could take care of. What he needed was an appointment system for the mornings and a nurse to help with the afternoons.

..........................................................

Born some ten years after Andrew, to a village doctor and his wife in rural Cornwall, Sister Celeste Lanyon had trained at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. When she first announced that this was to be her chosen vocation her father was horrified. Emptying bedpans and wiping up vomit was not the path that he had planned for his only child.

Doctor Lanyon had spent years ingratiating himself with the great and the good of Cornish society. He had several eligible young men from good families lined up as potential husbands for Celeste.

He argued with her. He implored her to change her mind. She would have none of it. And at last he did the stupidest thing that a parent could do, he gave his teenage daughter an ultimatum.

Celeste Lanyon left Cornwall and never crossed the River Tamar again.

The newly employed Student Nurse Lanyon worked hard. She did the most menial of tasks willingly. Her studies proved difficult but she didn't allow this to put her off. There was far more work than there were nurses to do it. This wasn't helped by the fact that any nurse ...