"diabetes care"

This is less a story than a thank you to Bangor Hospital for the care I have received at their Diabetes Clinic over a period of 4 decades. Such past clinicians as Dr Murphy, Dr Brennan (no longer with us), Dr Jones, Dr Trinnock and certainly not least Dr McIlwaine have been so supportive over the years. 

Sadly it has been necessary for me to leave Bangor when I decided a year ago to try the omnipod insulin pump. This necessitated a move to Ulster Hospital where the Diabetes Hub specialises in insulin pump therapy. Thus proved to be an enormous wrench for me in that I had to part company with a valued consultant, namely Dr McElwaine with whom I had clicked and whom I admired enormously for his knowledgeability, humanity and and humility. I had the privilege of attending his clinic for only about 2 or 3 years. I attempted to persuade him and others to allow me to continue there, post-pump therapy, as it had been the place of my diagnosis some 40 years previously and where my insulin regimen began. However, the system dictated otherwise: all pump patients were to attend the Ulster Hospital just a short distance away in Dundonald. 

What I particularly valued about Dr McElwaine was his acknowledgment that he was not the expert in my Diabetes but in fact that I was. He kept reminding me that I had been a diabetes sufferer for as long a time as he had been alive. He reminded me that I was the one who lived with it daily and my competent and tight control was therefore down to myself. This is a lovely thing to hear - especially from someone who can quote precise details and statistics about the difference for example in the speed of uptake between different insulins. 

I admired his honesty in that he encouraged me to go for the omnipod even though he had joked that he was in no hurry to get rid of me! 

Always a consummate professional and firm but fair in his dealings with patients, knowledgeable yet kind, highly competent yet humorously self-deprecating. 

The DSNs there, the efficient Carol  and the delightful Ruth I also sorely missed. With such staff as the above, Bangor Hospital must be retained. There have been plans to shut it for years now in the name of centralising of resources. Thankfully it has thus far survived. Long may it be so.