Bio[]
The National Health Clinic is a low-cost medical facility possibly located in either Lower Tidmarsh, Little Dimpton or a part of London. The clinic is extremely inefficient, under-funded and somewhat unprofessional, making the Lower Tidmarsh Volunteer Hospital appear superior by comparison.
The facility seems to be located in the ground floor of a much larger hospital. Private patients (Benny Hill) enter through a clean entryway where they are greeted by sexy nurses (Jenny Westbrook and Jayne-Marie) and offered wine while National Healthcare patients (Johnny Vyvyan) enter through a door that looks like a back alley where he's greeted by a surly doctor (Benny Hill) and a butch nurse (Cyril Cross) as departing patients (Henry McGee and Faye Hillier?) are bluntly dismissed. Patients are directed into a dingy waiting area where women (Sue Upton) are ogled by degenerates (Henry McGee and Cyril Cross) and hear the screams of patients (Ken Sedd and Henry McGee) getting their bandages ripped off their bodies.
The clinic also covers flu injections. Men (Jackie Wright and Roger Finch) get their shots in the arm; the women (Jenny Westbrook and Linda Sands) somewhere else. Brooms from the janitor's closet double as crutches for patients (Roger Finch) who need them. Meanwhile, during the examination, the doctor uses his patient to moisten and seal some letters and correspondence. When a mom (Sue Upton) brings in her injured son (David Barham), the doctor bandages his mouth to stop him from screaming.
During the examination of a patient in the x-ray machine, the doctor and nurse are amused when medicine given to the patient acts like a ball falling through a pinball machine in the x-ray. When they do it three times, they gets rewarded with coins through the bottom. When they're not in surgery, the operating table is used as a break room table replete with a dart board on the wall for their needles. Meanwhile, through the wall, they hear the patients with decent healthcare being treated like royalty with giggling scantily-clad nurses and champagne.
After surgery, patients have to heat their soup by candle, and on recovery, they're quickly escorted out without time to get their coats on.
Trivia[]
- Many of the the medical gags are repeated from Lower Tidmarsh Volunteer Hospital in The European Song Contest.
- The gag with the men getting shots in the arm but the ladies only getting shot in the posterior is repeated in a quickie is in Tex Cymbal: Golden Boy.
- Sue Upton and Jackie Wright play the janitors who take Roger Finch's crutches.
- Henry McGee also plays the bearded guy in the operating room Benny sharpens his surgical scissors on and dries his hands.
- The actress playing the nurse with Benny Hill and Cyril Cross in the operating room is unidentified.
- The "Silence" gag appears to have been lifted from two Tex Avery cartoons, "Rock-A-Bye Bear" (1952) and "Deputy Droopy" (1955).
