#AtoZChallenge: G is for Glasgow Royal Infirmary

This is the seventh of a series of posts that I’m posting during the A to Z Challenge; that’s a blogging challenge where you aim to post a blog post for each letter of the alphabet throughout the month of April (with Sundays off for good behaviour). During my first A to Z Challenge I wrote about infertility, which I’m sort of revisiting during A to Z Challenge 2015.

My theme this year is IVF/ICSI, a process we’re starting at the moment and today it’s G for Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Okay, so I’m sort of twisting things slightly with this post. I could have written this post for H, as in hospital, but I’ve got a post planned for a different topic tomorrow. This time around we’re having treatment at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, one of the big hospitals in Glasgow.

If you’re having treatment on the NHS, at least in Scotland, you don’t really get much of a choice in which hospital you get to go to. If you’re paying for treatment you have more of a say and you can weigh up different things like success rates, ease of access, the doctors working there, and the drug protocols that they follow.

If you are lucky enough to get to go to an open day, I’d highly recommend it. I’ve not seen an option for this at the GRI, but when we started treatment at the Nuffield two years ago we visited and got a tour of the facilities. It can be interesting to talk to the staff and learn about how things are done there.

Since we first visited the Glasgow Royal for the first time (way back roughly three years ago) they’ve done up the whole place. I’ll admit, I wasn’t thrilled with it the first time we visited; it looked quite shabby and worn out. It’s had a massive refit and the whole place looks great now. From our first appointment there in January this year, we were really impressed.

I think that one of the most important things is to make sure that you feel comfortable with the hospital you will be having treatment at. Having fertility treatments is incredibly invasive and while you probably won’t be enjoying every bit of your hospital visit, you want to feel happy with the place you’ll be spending so much time and relying on for such a big event in your lives.

If things about the hospital bother you, make sure you raise them with the staff. If you don’t tell them there’s a problem, they might not be aware of it. Speak to the nurses, the reception staff or write a letter if you’re not comfortable dealing with the issue face to face. Remember, they are there to help and it is in their best interests to make sure things work out for you.