Meeting the Great Consultant (2013) by Paul Durcan

After having fasted from midnight, I get a taxi at noon, Driven by an easygoing, affable Wexfordman from the 

Hook –

He confesses that he finds modern hospitals ‘scary’ –

To the Hospital – Level 5, Day Care –

For what the Great Consultant’s secretary by phone 

Has told me will be ‘a procedure’.

As with anything to do with Health, it’s a Stations of

the Cross

The purpose of which is to cause the patient maximum

humiliation and stress.

Reception: a mean-looking, middle-aged lady with

dyed blonde hair;

Canine, snub-nosed, dismissive.

Onward to the ward: two young female nurses –

One human and warm and gay and bright and helpful; 

The other brittle, curt, bent on making a nuisance of 

herself –

Flings open cubicle curtains, instructs me

To get into a trolley bed.

Having undressed and wrapped up in a surgical

gown –

The usual, humdrum, pre-crucifixion scenario –

I sit there in bed for an hour and a half – waiting 

Before being wheeled at speed down corridors 

To the day-procedure operating theatre.

In position, I can see the Great Consultant –

His back. He does not deign to greet me

But in his blue scrubs stands with his back to me 

At a counter, mugging up his notes,

Or, as he would pompously snigger, ‘consulting your

files’.

Finally, he spins around on his heel,

Vaunting a glimpse of boyhood’s homoerotic hips, 

A young middle-aged, grey-haired, baby-faced gang

boss

Who theatrically thinks of himself as the nurses 

Think of him: as a God of the Hospital

(They refer to him never by name – only as HE). 

Standing over me he gloats and glowers,

Informing me of the type of anaesthetic I’ll be injected

with.

I ask him a question, but he ignores me – after all, 

He is a consultant and consultants do not consult, 

Certainly not with a patient.

And so I am injected and a masked nurse

Clamps my mouth, and the Great Consultant 

Shoves a sewer rod down my throat

And fifteen minutes later I am trolleyed back to the

cubicle.

No, this tight-bottomed, pint-sized, Dublin suburbanite 

With his Dublin 4 Great Medical Family pedigree –

His Rugby or his GAA field cred –

All-Ireland Championship medals or Irish caps –

Will not be doing any consulting with me today.

A boorish, contemptuous, conceited bully boy.

Three hours later, as I am departing Reception,

He passes me by, pretending not to recognise me. 

But I put a spanner in his swagger and greet him and

compel him

To say ‘Ah, Mr Durcan!’ and I say to him:

‘Do you know what? You are a perfunctory little bugger, 

But you have just done me for 600 euro – enjoy!’