Introducing a poem by autistic writer and creator Carolina Chobabovski, which powerfully evokes the soul-destroying experience of taking a complaint to the PHSO.
Her website can be found here – Chobabovski Channel
This Idle Seat, This Hollow Ear
O faithless hands, who justice falsely claim,
The PHSO hath brought itself to shame.
With careless hearts and tongues that twist the truth,
They mocked my pain and scorned both age and youth.
Their codes they broke with bold and open face,
No grievance heard, no proof they did embrace.
Unfit-picked guides were sent no word from me—
Just records flawed, bereft of clarity.
Those poor advisors, ill-equipped and bare,
Were left to guess what wrongs had brought me there.
The facts, though firm, were turned upon their head,
And lies were dressed as truths, their bonds to shed.
Their findings false, their process naught but jest,
A travesty that gave my soul no rest.
Their bias plain, their justice but a show—
A shadow court where truth may never go.
And when I cried, “this judgment is untrue,”
Their guard of truth denied what they must do.
They claimed, untrue, they fix but facts alone,
And left my deeper wounds to bleed, unknown.
So crushed was I, so burnt, so cast aside,
I could not seek the courts, though law applied.
And thus fiends walk away, untouched by blame,
As did the cause of Post Office shame.
Let no man say this beast hath served us well—
It fosters rot where virtue once did dwell.
A hollow court, where truth is cast aside,
Where justice begs, and knaves in shadows hide.
It shields the wrong, and strikes the just man’s plea,
While draped in robes of false integrity.
Our Country’s Health falls like stone,
When none are held to task but left alone.
The public scorned, their voices mocked and marred,
Their wounds made sport, their sufferings unbarred.
And all this waste, this cruel, corrupt parade,
Is paid by coin the honest poor have made.
Then let it fall—this blight, this foul pretence!
Tear down the gate that guards incompetence.
No more shall such a knave consume our trust:
Strike out its name, and grind its form to dust.

Absolute brilliance +. Real truth
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All of which applies equally as well, of course, to the abomination of the GMC, the police (when confronted with NHS crime), etc., etc.
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I was quite moved by this poem because I could feel her pain. A pain many of us still live with and an anger at the lack of progress when it comes to PHSO doing the job it should do.
It’s a pity that the people who should read this poem won’t and even if they did they would understand it .
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And of course, the cost to the public purse of the shambudsman vastly exceeds what the cost of fair compensation to complainants would have been.
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I am mightily impressed. It puts my own meagre efforts at NHS poetry to shame!
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Not at all Keith. Yours are genius.
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Aww, shucks!
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Thank you for this poem. It gets to the soul of how we feel.
It should be put on the walls of all NHS hospitals but more importantly in the offices of NHS complaint managers, where most are utterly utterly shameful and without conscience.
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This wonderful poem says it all, 100%.
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A wonderful piece of work that vividly catches the experiences of som many people. Essential reading for every politician and the current Ombudsman
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