Blimey. I know there's a credit crunch, and that top-up fees are a hot topic, but forcing patients to finance their own surgical equipment seems a bit much. True, the story did involve only a case of ingrowing eyelashes. And the pair of tweezers the local hospital apparently couldn't conjure up did cost a mere £3.45, plus the petrol money to the nearest supermarket. But it's the principle - or, as The Sun succinctly put it: “It's a plucking outrage!”

What next? Patients with appendicitis packing a Stanley knife with their toothbrush? Cardiac cases trawling the aisles of their local DIY store looking for discounted heart-lung machines?

In fact, the natural extension of this concept - given the length of NHS waiting lists - would be for patients to start performing surgery on themselves. After all, if they have to provide the kit, why not the expertise, too? I'm kidding, obviously. Except that it took me only ten googling seconds to discover video evidence of someone excising a mole with pliers and a craft knife, and of someone else removing a tattoo with a power sander.

Indeed, there's a proud tradition of DIY surgery of this sort, the most dramatic example being the woman who, in 2000, tried to cure her chronic fatigue syndrome by drilling a 2cm-deep hole in her head. Not a success.

Despite such salutary lessons, the trend for surgical self-sufficiency seems to be increasing, largely because of the current obsession with cosmetic surgery. Apparently, those in search of the perfect body-on-a-budget have tried DIY tummy-tucks and ironing their skin to cure wrinkles.

A chisel to the nose sounds prosaic by comparison - indeed, in parts of Essex, it's common at pub chucking-out time - but to inflict this on yourself in a hamfisted attempt at a nose job takes guts. Clearly I'm not going to condone such behaviour. Having said that, there are one or two minor procedures that really can be tried at home. For example, it's quite easy to relieve the horrendous pain of a bruise under the nail. The typical sequence of events is as follows: female nags male into long-delayed home improvement procedure involving hammer and nails. Male complies amid much muttering. Male applies extra hard whack with hammer to vent frustration. Male realises too late that nail thwacked is his own. Male screams and swears. Ambulance is called. Relationship disintegrates.

It doesn't have to be this way. The man with the sore finger has a “subungual haematoma”, blood trapped under his nail. All that's required is for the red-hot end of an unfolded paper-clip to be applied to the offending area of nail; no doubt his partner will gladly oblige. Cue a small hole, a dramatic spurt of blood and instant relief. Health professionals may view this DIY approach as cavalier, but how many other self-help procedures slash queues at both A&E and Relate?

There are other, admittedly less spectacular, tricks. For example, the pain of an ingrowing toenail can be eased simply by cutting a small V shape out of the nail's front edge. This gives it enough “spring” to relieve the pressure on the ingrowing side. It's not brain surgery. In fact, it's chiropody, only cheaper than the real thing.

Bumped your head? Got a little laceration? No problem. Simply twirl a few hairs together each side of the injury, then tie one strand to the other to close the cut: bingo, DIY sutures. Ganglion - a small cyst - on your wrist? That's the oldest one in the book. And it needs a book to cure it. Because the traditional cure is to thump it with the family Bible. This hurts, but the blow may burst the cyst. In the absence of a Bible - and given that cooking is now almost a religion - you can try a recipe book. But not the new Heston Blumenthal, or you will end up in a hospital ward.

What about those ingrowing eyelashes, then? Leave them well alone. This one's strictly for the professionals.

So it's straight off to the supermarket with you.

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