Be Excellent To Each Other

The postie just bought my mail. It was just one letter with 'OPEN IMMEDIATELY!' stamped in big red letters on the front.

Short and in HUGE print it reads exactly as follows (bolding, layout, capitalisation all as close as I can duplicate)




Miss Hill


YOU NEED A SMEAR TEST.

NOW.

The smear test identifies the cancer on the neck of your womb in it's early stages.

With treatment you will live normally.

Without treatment you will become very ill and may die.

Book an appointment IMMEDIATELY.

Yours sincerely.

Is it me or is that worded to the point of almost insensitive, worrying and upsetting? I happen to have had my test a couple of months ago but had it at another surgery because the one time I did go to that doctors they caused me a lot of pain, were very rough with me and spoke to me like I was an annoying, inanimate object.

That's horrible.

Come on, that must be a piss-take.

I can't see why they'd send out a piss-take letter - it's just frightening.

I have had letters from them a couple of years ago about needing a smear test (the first time that i went to them) and I remember them at the time being a bit strongly worded, but it was not, to my memory, anything as bad as that.

As there are a lot f people in this area with poor English I can well imagine that it would genuinely frighten a lot of women.

Smear tests are important enough to warrant it, but perhaps not in such a random fashion. It's a subject pretty close to me, and I've had to restrain myself from screaming at female acquaintances who regard it as unimportant.

I agree that that letter is very blunt and insensitive, but the message it conveys is true.

It's not too far off the mark, though, for what might happen, but too much for an edumacational mailshot.

<inserts stuck up cunt joke>

What davey said.

Actually, one of my aunts had cervical cancer. It's OK to educate women to help them understand why the test is important, but this is nothing more than something designed to induce panic.

even the wording:
"YOU NEED A SMEAR TEST.

NOW.

The smear test identifies the cancer on the neck of your womb in it's early stages."

Makes it sound like I definitely HAVE cancer. If I was less educated or had poor English this would put the fear of God into me.

"Without treatment you will become very ill and may die."


As a woman I can tell you that this kind of mail is not what I want to receive by way of information from my doctor - I want informative, educated explanations as to why something is important - not a letter screaming at me that I am likely to die if I do not have the test NOW - IMMEDIATELY.

That's completely out of order. Is this a commercial concern? Personally I'd probably report them to some kind of ombudsman...

Screw the semantics... RUN TO THE DOCTOR'S, MIMI!

Dammit, if you're quick enough you might not die!!!!!!!

I do not quite understand what you mean by 'commercial concern'.

As in somewhere trying to make money by getting more people in for smear tests.

Just wondered who's actually responsible for sending the letters?

There are targets which must be met. This isn't the right way to go about it, of course.

It seems to have been sent directly from the Medical Centre. It's dated 7th April, so they haven't rushed themselves to actually post it to me, despite the fact that I need the test NOW. IMMEDIATELY.

The advantage of being a gynacologist is that you can always wallpaper your hall through the letterbox.

Well I'm geniunely surprised that they are able to get away that wording in this day and age - and that no-one working at the Centre dispatching them have taken issue with it. If it's NHS regulated there are surely guidelines...

Cripes! That's over a month ago! You're probably already dead!

Mrs Squirt gets fairly sensible letters asking her for a smear test - "Cervical cancer is nasty, and this test might help spot it early". No scaremongering needed.

Isn't cervical cancer the one they've developed the vaccine for now?

without wanting to get into another language argument today...

doesn't that sort of read like the reader has cancer of the womb?
that's stupid.

There was an article about shocking adverts in a paper I read recently, although it might not have been so recently, although it deffo was as it talked about the NHS don't smoke adverts which don't really work for me as I'm often sat at home watching tellybox drinking my Rose wine and taking notes about the social ills of single mums and Page 3 teens and the like and then they show the advert and then i want a fag but anyways they said that the best way to get people to remember the ad for important health reasons was to shock people and I think that's correct as i remember the 'don't drink and drive' ones, especially the one with the fit bird in the bar and the one (well, two actually) about getting teenage boys to use condoms in their attempt to increase the number of teenage mums in the UK as they were good.

I was recently involved in a great deal of lobbying to raise awareness of the risks of cervical cancer, and if what we did had any part in the way that letter is worded I'm A) sorry and B) vibratingly angry about it.

That HPV vaccine for kids is a good thing though.

Surely it turns them into sex-crazed fornicators? Or did the Catholic Church lie about that?

Yes, that's what I said above - it seems deliberately aimed at making the recipient believe that they do perhaps have cancer to shock them into attending, which is a scary way of going about things. As I say, educate people, fine, but don't send me crap like that in the post. i wouldn't ever go back there, anyway, it's a terrible place.

Mm.. and I've got nothing against using 'shock tactics' against smokers (even though I smoke myself) or potential drink drivers who have the benifit of personal choice in these matters, but the way the letter seems to imply that someone will 'likely die' just because they have a cervix seems to be overstepping the mark somwhat IMO.

Seems to have been some sort of u-turn recently from 'Nanny State' to ''Freely psychologically unsettle the masses' state'...

If it does, then I am all for it.

But, no it won't it';s jsut people's refusal to accept that their little angel is gonna get drunk in the park one night with little johnny who is their friend and jsut wants a hug as he's sad and ends up 9 mpnths later with a butterfly tatoo on her hip and a young un to feed.

I remember watching the Drink Driving advert in a cinema. The one with the blokes drinking and the guy decides to have "Just one more" and the hot girl comes walking over to the table smiling at him and after he takes a sip of his drink the camera lurches, his table moves forward and runs her over and she lays dead at the foot of the bar. An ominous voice announces:

"It takes less than you might think to drink and drive"

in the dead quiet of the cinema I turn to my friend and say:

"You don't even need a car!"

and hundreds of eyes glare at me in disgust.

i would laugh
i understand the message, but i think some of the adverts are silly. the 'stop smoking' ones always make me want a smoke

I think they left off the bit where it says:
'Pass this on to ten friends in five minutes otherwise you will die lol'

Nice bit of misogyny, that letter. I'd deliberately not take one after getting a letter like that. Funny how they don't do the same "talk to them like a piece of shit" to men about prostate cancer, isn't it?



What joyless wankers. Good work, sir! I hate it when crowds get sanctimonious, the boring bastards.

Prostate cancer isn't as big (costly in terms of money and lives) a problem yet.

I reckon the wording is fairly ropey and I'm going to assume it is meant with the best of intent and executed rather ham-fistedly. The NHS have a bit about them when it comes to making people better, but if the communications expert is on holiday, this sort of thing can happen, I'd imagine someone has gotten a bollocking about the lack of smear tests happening and been told to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. NOW. and are probably aping the manner in which they themselves were told. I'd be inclined to write a constructive letter back saying you felt the tone was inappropriate and make a suggestion of how you'd like it to be worded.

This is a fuck up, but for godness' sake tell them how you'd like it to be done or they never will. And yes, in principal they bloody well should know better in the first place but when the NSPCC had a campaign that was having a similarly upsetting effect on victims of child abuse it took one of them (my mate) writing in (in a polite and constructive manner) and expaining how it felt for her and what the problems were and how they might go about it differntly to effect change. Cue a whole new campaign, ever seen the green dots?

I'd also be inclined to mention them being horrible to your vagina last time. It'll take more than the advertising budget for the whole health service to undo the damage of even twenty women posting on a website about being (literally?) manhandled in the stirrups. They'll want to be bringing people in and here you are in a good position to authoratatively guide them round two current obstacles to doing so, which they've put in their own way.

That said, the 'you will definitely die' message has worked for years with regard to smoking, and not having smear tests isn't usually something people are addicted to, so it should in theory work even better. Doesn't, of course, but there you go.

That's a disgusting letter, I actually read it as though you *are* in the early stages of cervical cancer and need treatment. What a scary thing for any woman to recieve!

I was there that day, with my mum on the "National Drink-Drive Victims' Family Association" annual day out.

You insensitive bastards.

Or bloke.

I'm thinking you are less inclined to suffer from cervical cancer, Goatboy

Also, I did write both to them and the Brent Primary Health Trust. No reply from the surgery, just a fob-of letter from the Health trust saying that my concerns had been forwarded. I will write and explain my concerns about the letter tomorrow - I like to give myself a day or so to consider how I feel about something properly before just writing because I am upset, but I still feel the same way these hours later, so I will definitely write.

Also, it's not the vagina as such that is usually hurt in this proceedure, but the cervix

I'm not, he's a cunt.

673 bananas.

Ah, ok, write to the person in the very top charge. That's best. The people you've got an address for are the people hired by those directly below the chief executive and they'vebeen hired to prevent this sort of thing reaching him, because then they'd have to manage and be responsible for some dificult changes. And they'd get bolloked. Usually best to sniff out the head honcho and get it to them, bearing in mind they don't open their own mail.

Also your MP, the local paper and the Daily Mail, in that order.

Actually, plan B: Go to the police station and report it as a letter you feel must not be genuine and that you consider to be a cruel prank. Old bill calling round will certainly make them sit up and take notice.

And yes, of course, the cervix is worst off, sorry. Although I'm betting the smear ain't exactly the high point of many a vagina's year, either.

Yes, you are right, Goatboy. I shall find out the appropriate addresses and write to explain my concerns. I know enough to be aware that this is nothing more than close to scaremongering - I've had my test and know to go elsewhere, but people less aware than myself of what the test is for and what the letter is supposed to aim to do could be very frightened by receiving something such as this, so hopefully they'll review exactly what they are posting out.

One of the reasons we left the London borough of Brent was because their doctors were not very good.

Malc

That advert isn't about drinking and driving. It's about drinking and casting magic.