Wednesday 16 February 2011

The Great Doctor

My Dear Old Mum is up in the city for a surgical procedure, so yesterday I had to take her to the clinic for her pre-op assessment.
This is a private clinic, I want you to remember.
We waited ... and waited ... and waited.
We waited three hours before she got to see The Great Doctor.
The clinic was packed, because they were mostly senior patients awaiting the same assessment which involved medication that meant they could not drive, so every patient was accompanied by at least one other person.
My mum is in her 80s and the long wait meant she'd had no lunch, and though there was coffee and tea-making gear in another part of the building, she was too unsure of the walk there with her stick, and also worried that if her name was called while she wasn't sitting anxiously outside The Great Doctor's room, she'd be forced to wait even longer.
I eventually found her, and she told me she'd watched The Great Doctor call in other patients who had appointments later than hers.
So when The Great Doctor poked his head out of his room to call in the next sucker (I'm amazed he didn't have some girlie to do this for him), I glared at him.
You see, not only was he calling patients in at random, but early that morning there had been "an emergency", so he was running late.
And to make matters worse, there were supposed to be two doctors in attendance, but one was absent.
So The Great Doctor was by now a little flustered, which meant when I glared at him, he Took Serious Umbrage. He was being told off!
"We've been running late all day today, and everybody has to wait," he snooted.
"You'll get your turn," he snooted again.
He turned to scuttle back into his room, so I called out to him.
"I don't understand why, when you find yourself in this ridiculous position, you can't ring patients and tell them there is chaos, you are running hopelessly late, and they should come in an hour or two later."
After all, I thought, you only treat people like this because they are elderly and in awe of you. You wouldn't survive in The Real World if you ran any other business this way and treated your customers in such a disrespectful fashion.
But I am not elderly, and I am not in awe of trumped-up little twits, be they surgeons or salesmen.
The Great Doctor took a deep breath and tried to look big.
"Oh that's not my problem," he snooted as he scuttled into his room.
Two patients later, it was my mum's turn at last.
When she was in his office, The Great Doctor rounded on her and said: "If you can't be bothered waiting, go somewhere else."
Great doctor, eh?

4 comments:

Natalie, the Chickenblogger said...

He majored in EGO.
I have seen my share of those, so
I am going to give thanks for the Dr. we have right now, may he live another fifty years, because I never want to see another!
I am afraid there is a great deal of elder abuse in medicine. My grandmother has endured some very sh!tty practices... we hear about them after the fact and are appalled. Some have no shame, no integrity, no compassion, no common sense.

Rattling On said...

My dentist has cancelled and rescheduled our regular appointment FOUR times now as he's taking holidays. It's all a bit 'jam tomorrow', we'll never get the (also private) session though the payments still go out...

Mousy Brown said...

I can feel my shoulders raising and my blood pressure rising as I read - I am still suffering side effects from the allergic reaction I had to antibiotics last year but I am suffering from many drs with big egos - I have so much sympathy for your mum, I have decided to give up and suffer for the time being but goodness knows what I will do if it gets worse. This is the NHS but I am sure private ones are worse...where's a witch when you need one??

Karen said...

Blogger lost my comment.
WV: prate!