A conversation with my doctor’s receptionist
ME: Hi, I’m one of Dr X’s patients. I’ve had a recurring chest infection for the last month; it went away for a week or so, but it’s come back over the last several days. I was taking some antibiotics, but have now run out and been coughing up blood. I would like to get some more antibiotics.
RECEPTIONIST: You need to see the doctor.
ME: Yes…that’s why I’m calling.
RECEPTIONIST: You need to call tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock and try to arrange an appointment.
ME: Well, I’m calling now. Can’t you book me in now?
RECEPTIONIST: You need to call tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock and try to arrange an appointment.
ME: Thanks so much.
Antoine had advised me in email to call the doctor (despite my protestations that they wouldn’t be interested in helping me), saying, “If you ring your GP’s office and tell them you’re coughing blood they will want you to come in asap.” Yeah, one would think. Score another point for the NHS and socialised medicine!
Filed under: Life, Politics, Survival, The State Is Not Your Friend
It’ll be because of the waiting time requirements. They will have an appointment for you in three days or so, but if they make you call to make it tomorrow, they can say they saw you within two days. Just before the last election, Tony Blair was told about this practice on BBC Question Time and he simply couldn’t believe it.
Could I despise this government any more? Every day, through encounters and revelations like this, I find a way. Thanks, Peter.
If only you had started showing symptoms while stateside. My singular experience with Britain’s NHS left me wondering just how bad a problem had to be before a doctor would consider an examination!
Yeah, I basically walked off the plane in London and thought, “Damn, I’m sick again.”
Sometime, I must get Antoine to blog about when the NHS almost killed him three times in one day (which started with making him wait for hours to be seen at the emergency room when he had appendicitis).
That happened nearly everytime I traveled easterly over the Atlantic (getting sick). I chalk it up to stress. Days prior to the flight I was busy preparing for whatever work it was I going over to perform. It never failed that I was without a minute of sleep the night before a trip for one reason or another.
My experience with care is France was completely different. More times than not I happened to be staying with my girlfriend’s parents. (Holiday season or wedding or some such.) Her mother would call a doctor and — get this — would do something called a “house call.” Between her mother, the doctor and myself, I was the only one who spoke English, and when I spoke French at the time… lets just say I was a danger to myself and others around me. Descriptions of my symptoms with aided with a rude translation program on my laptop.
Meds were prescribed and everything worked out, however I always got a feeling that something underhanded was going on.. as if the paperwork was made out for a patient “M. Delpierre.”
And yet, this is the sort of system being proposed by Illinois’ democrat, presidential wannabe “Rock Star”. The system’s bad here, but will only get worse if we take on an NHS-style universal healthcare system.
> Could I despise this government any more?
To be fair, the same thing, or something very similar, would be happening under any party with an even distantly realistic chance of forming a British government any time in the last twenty years, and probably for at least another ten to come. The problem with the NHS isn’t the British Government; it’s the British people, who make any politician who suggests getting rid of it completely unelectable.
Squander Two, I agree, but it’s this government that’s stealing from me to pay for this monstrosity.