The Text Kit

2020

8min

Tiget, a 16-year-old black South London teenager, is worried a boy she met via social media has infected her with an STD. When trying to get a check-up she miserably fails to do the self-testing kit and ends up in the Sexual Health clinic, where the only person still there to see her is middle-aged grumpy Dr Mark Mackenzie. While her friends wind her up more and more via text about what she might have picked up, Mark is trying to get her out of the door as quickly as possible. Their consultation is interrupted by NHS messaging apps pestering Mark to get to the ward round and a test ordering system that doesn't let Tiger be checked for "everything". Anxiously awaiting the bedside test result for HIV, Tiger connects with Mark over the difficulties the digital world poses for both of them in different ways.