Here's the scene: My husband Tony is desperately ill and I'm sitting by his hospital bed. He's been sick for weeks and at one stage I was told he was expected to die. He's now out of a coma and no longer, thank God, one of the ten sickest people in the vast teaching hospital. But still no one knows what's wrong with him. He's been moved from the intensive care unit into a small room when suddenly a consultant descends. Sarah Foot says that while with her sick husband Tony in hospital a consultant with hostile body language came crashing in and started talking down to them as she gave the diagnosis . She crashes through the door, followed by half a dozen of her juniors, who crowd round the bed and wait for her to speak. No one's in any doubt who's in charge. She talks not at us, but down to us, like some reincarnation of the monstrous Sir Lancelot Spratt (played by James Robertson Justice) from the Doctor In The House films. Except this isn't funny. Tony has been in hospital for more than a month, but how or why he got ill so suddenly no one really knows. One minute I was wondering whether he just had man flu; the next he was delirious with fever and dreadful abdominal pains, and being rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Just 48 hours later, he was in a drug-induced coma with sepsis, a life-threatening condition triggered by an infection, his organs shutting down one by one. When he was admitted, his symptoms suggested pancreatitis - where the pancreas becomes inflamed. I want to know if the doctors are any the wiser about what caused his body to go into free fall. Sarah accompanied Tony as he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, and shortly after was in a drug-induced coma with sepsis . So, looking up at the sea of faces, I ask: 'Was it pancreatitis that started this?' I remain sitting, because if I stand, Tony - who is unable to speak for himself as he has a tube in his windpipe - will feel even more helpless. 'Yes,' the consultant declares haughtily, 'he presented with similar symptoms.' 'But was it actually pancreatitis?' She repeats herself impatiently: 'Yes, he presented with similar symptoms.' Her hostile body language is telling me to shut up and know my place. I try again, but still she answers like a politician, repeating the same refrain. Then she shuffles her notes and says that another consultant is coming to discuss a kidney tumour that showed up on a scan. This news floors me. 'No one mentioned a tumour.' 'Yes, they did.' 'No, they didn't.' 'Yes, they did.' For a moment we are in panto territory with someone whose life is hanging by a thread lying terrified between us. Then off she breezes. I'm torn between bursting into tears and storming into the corridor to tell those junior doctors that if they learn one thing today, it's how not to talk to the sick and their loved ones. Patient's relative meets doctors: it's a scene repeated daily in hospitals all over the country. You can guarantee the next of kin are frightened and exhausted. Life and death are routine for medical staff, but for the rest of us they are, well, life and death. Doctors will argue they are appallingly busy, would love to give people more attention, but don't have the time. Or that to do their job properly they need the emotional distance. I can understand that. But here's another story from the same hospital. Same patient, different consultant, working under exactly the same pressure and constraints as the others. And his approach was so full of kindness and compassion that I wonder whether the disparity between those who have a good bedside manner and those who don't is about individuals rather than the pressure of the job. This man became our rock when Tony's illness - whatever caused the sepsis in the first place was never identified - sparked off a chain reaction that had doctors chasing problems around his body for a year after he was admitted in March 2006. One serious ailment would be contained, only for another to present. There was massive internal damage from the sepsis to be repaired surgically, but also an aortic aneurysm (a swelling of the main blood vessel leading from the heart) to be bypassed and more infections to be cured. Not to mention that cancerous kidney tumour to be dealt with when he was well enough. 'Roller-coaster' doesn't come near the ride he was on. Much of his care fell to this one particular specialist, a urologist, who, to my astonishment, gave me his mobile phone number and told me to call if I had concerns. One Sunday night, eight months into this medical odyssey, Tony was nauseous, with his temperature rising and his remaining strength draining fast. So I rang this doctor at home at 9pm. He wanted to admit Tony immediately for intravenous antibiotics. I pleaded for a reprieve. It was Guy Fawkes night and I imagined the hospital would be busy dealing with fireworks related accidents. She had barely slept for weeks and was extremely anxious, so needed kindness and support . Plus we had a three-year-old son and he'd be thrown into turmoil. Would it be possible, I suggested, for me to give my husband more antibiotics at home and bring him into hospital in the morning? The doctor agreed, but then warned me: 'Tony may deteriorate very quickly. And if he does, I want you to call. I don't care if it's 4am.' Four in the morning? For the second time that awful year a doctor's words reduced me to tears. But on this occasion I was overwhelmed by kindness far beyond the call of duty. After a further set of operations, including a ten-hour marathon to reconstruct parts of his insides that had been destroyed by infection, this doctor would phone us at home and see how my husband was. A five-minute phone call could spare us so much distress. And if things were not good, he would tell us to come in and he'd arrange for a room to see us in. And this was not because we had private health to fall back on. Both doctors were working in the same private healthcare system. When I look back at my bedside encounter with that Spratt of a consultant, if I'm being rational, I can see that whether I knew the precise name of my husband's illness or had been forewarned about his tumour was irrelevant. It would not make any difference to the prognosis. But what she did not have was the nous (or compassion) to grasp that a patient's loved ones are rarely at their most rational. I'd barely slept for weeks and was extremely anxious. And, like all relatives, I needed kindness and support because I was going to play a crucial role in my husband's care. Doctors prescribe a pill, but it is those of us with a bedside seat who have to sugar it. The nearest and dearest have to explain, encourage and display the morale-boosting love and concern that can speed recovery. Anyone who's been a hospital patient knows what a comfort it is to have an advocate focusing just on them and making sure they get what they need. And the better informed the relative is by the doctors, the sooner they can take the patient home and free up the hospital bed. Sarah wonders some doctors so understanding and others less so . Relatives are also essential if there is bad news. Tony still remembers lying in a ward early one morning groggy from an operation when a young man in a bed opposite was visited by the doctors. The curtains were pulled round, then ten minutes later swished back. Once the doctors had gone, the young man - who was no older than 19 - was left on his own. He called out: 'They've just told me the operation didn't work. I'll be dead in six months.' My husband was too sick to help or even respond. But what has always troubled him is why that young man had been left on his own when a death sentence was passed. Couldn't someone have thought to wait until his parents arrived to tell him the bad news? Why are some doctors so understanding and others less so? However much you try, you can't legislate for compassion. Human relations are composed of too many subtleties. My husband came through his ordeal, though he still bears the scars of six operations within a year, has bits of plastic inside him keeping him alive - stents to bypass the aneurysm, another for a blood clot - and is on a strict, life-long regimen of medication. The tumour was treated successfully, and the only lasting side-effect is a pain in his leg - the result of a blood clot after one lengthy operation. I know he is fortunate to be alive. But they were hard times and I have all too vivid memories of how some doctors were a blessing from on high, but others were the complete opposite, erecting a cordon sanitaire between them and their patient. They were too wrapped up, I fear, in their own self-importance. Over the years we have had to meet many more doctors. Some are gentle and understanding. Others less so. I can't help thinking it's their decision. As with all of us, how we relate to others is our choice. I still regret that, on that miserable day, I didn't rush out after the junior doctors and demand to know: what sort of doctor do you want to be remembered as? A saint? Or a Spratt? Sarah Foot's new novel Fragments (Quercus, £19.99).
Sarah Foot says a consultant talked down at she and her sick husband . Her 'hostile body language' was 'telling me to shut up and know my place'
Says that like all relatives, what she needed was kindness and support .