You may remember that in mid-June I had to go from my annual blood tests. Basically the anti-depressants I'm prescribed can cause thyroid, kidney and liver problems in a very small number of cases. As a result once a year I have to go for a blood test to make sure that I'm not in that tiny minority. Essentially the whole thing's more about my doctor's malpractice insurance rather then anything to do with my health.
As you may have noticed about two weeks ago I decided to take some time off because frankly there are only so many videos of people blowing each other up you can watch before it starts to get tiring. This prompted my doctor to send out an ominous sounding letter demanding I make an appointment with them immediately to discuss the results of those blood tests. They also demanded that I gave them my cellphone number for their records. This struck me as an attempt to conduct a little research into my exhausted mental state. However it really annoyed me for two reasons.
Immediately after taking the blood test I walked out of the hospital to my doctors office next door to make an appointment in like a week or so to discuss the test results. I was then told that I couldn't make an appointment because all of that weeks appointments had gone so I needed to try again at the start of the next week. I tried this and I tried it again in the two weeks after. In the end in order to get my prescription renewed I had to have a telephone consultation. This involved the doctor calling me on my cellphone - a number that is very clearly on their records.
Knowing that appointments tend to go early in the week I phoned them up today to make an appointment. I was told they don't do that any more so instead I would have to phone them between 08:00 and 08:15 in the morning to make an appointment.
Although in a conversation with a medical receptionist I think it is impossible to be classed as "the rude one" I can't help but wonder how difficult it could possibly be to operate a system whereby a small percentage of appointments are reserved for people like me and with longterm conditions that need routine management such diabetes, high cholesterol, reproductive health etc that can be booked in advance. The rest of the appointments would be left to be booked by urgent cases on the day. After all if the ring-fenced appointments aren't pre-booked they can be opened up on the day to urgent cases.
So basically we're back to the problem of me being expected to run Croydon. For free.
16:30 on 25/8/15 (UK date).
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