THE NHS is in a sorry state. If it was a person, its relatives would already be calling in the priest to give it the last rites. Whichever way you look at it, however many spoonfuls of sugar you use to coat the pill, it is dying on its feet.

We all know how bad it is. Or at least we think we do, until something happens to make us see that our already low expectations are still way above the derisory service actually on offer.

Last month my friend Sharon discovered the baby she was carrying was dead. It was a crushing blow for her and her husband, but they handled the situation with strength and dignity.

The consultant at her local London hospital gave her some strong painkillers and told her to go home and wait for nature to take its course sometime in the next two weeks. Everyone hoped it would be over sooner rather than later, but unfortunately nature had other ideas and nothing happened.

So Sharon returned to the hospital where she had first been given the devastating news so doctors could give nature a helping hand, and she and her husband could begin to move on.

She sat for three hours waiting to be seen, but as she was not technically an emergency she understood the delay. After a brisk and somewhat brusque consultation, she was told no one was available to take care of her problem that day and she should come back at 9am the next day ready to be anaesthetised.

So Sharon ate and drank nothing that night and returned the next day at 9am prompt. Again, she was told she would have to wait... and wait... and wait.

As the morning dragged on, her husband decided to dash out and grab some currency for a trip to France they were due to take with their two-year-old son at the weekend. When he returned Sharon was in a hospital gown on a trolley with a line in her arm ready for action.

Unfortunately, however, action was not exactly what the hospital had in mind. Another six hours passed. By this time Sharon had not eaten or drunk anything for more than 24 hours, she had barely slept and she had not had a civil word, never mind any medical care, from the staff on duty.

Eventually, after "causing a fuss", as her husband described their desperate attempts to get a straight answer on what precisely was happening, they were told she might be seen at 9pm - 12 hours after their arrival that morning, and 36 hours after they first checked in. But even then the hospital staff, who were now becoming increasingly frosty, refused to be pinned down to a promise.

So they left. Dispirited, disappointed and downright furious, they walked out of the hospital, went home and found themselves a private consultant. He saw them at 7pm that same night.

Sharon walked into his clinic at 9am the following morning, and was recovering well from the procedure an hour later, sad but also more than a little relieved.

After my anger and disgust on my friend's behalf began to subside, I couldn't help wondering if her experience was really what Tony Blair and his Government had in mind when they talked about public-private partnerships. Instead of referring to two bodies working in tandem to create a healthier health service, perhaps the phrase was intended to imply that the public sector can treat patients like dirt while the private sector sweeps up the mess.

We sneer at the American system of pay-as-you-go health care - an unfair, unjustifiable system under which poor people literally can't afford to be sick - but then we run our own National Health Service into the ground, forcing people to fall back on expensive private care.

The NHS used to be a source of great pride, but it is fast becoming a source of shame. When a woman who has suffered a traumatic miscarriage is made to feel like a nuisance and an annoyance when simply asking for help, there is something terribly wrong with the system. Let's just hope the decline is not terminal.

Updated: 09:44 Tuesday, June 18, 2002