Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Weird Medical Arrangements

     I like the little walk in medical clinic that I go to. I can request the doctor  I want to see. Sometimes the wait is long but they give you a time and you can go away and do something else. I've found a really good young doc who's with it and shows an interest in patients in general.

    Now it's time for my annual medical check up. The system they have for making an appointment is just plain wacky. Appointments are made on the first of the month for the next month. Bookings can be made by phone or walk in. There aren't very many spaces for yearly medical check ups.

   Now the door to this clinic opens at 8:30 AM. They open their phone lines at 9:00 AM. So if you phone you might find that all the appointment spaces have been taken. So people line up outside the clinic to be able to book their appointments at 8:30 AM.

   So there I was this morning at 8:00 AM waiting half an hour to get in the clinic. I was second in line. It was minus 15 C(plus 3 F). By 8:30 AM there were about 30 people waiting. There was lots of good chatter.

    So once the doors were open it took 30 seconds to book my appointment and I was back out on the street in two minutes.

   Before I left, my wife was criticizing the procedure I had to go through to get an appointment. 
She said, "Just think how difficult this must be for old people!" Well, whether she knows it or not, this old person waited in the cold and did very well thank you very much. On the other hand I'm happy not to be classified as an old person.

    So tell me now, does anybody else have to jump through weird hoops to get an appointment for a yearly check up?