The NHS, god love it, is indeed the biggest pile of wank ever. Brown and his swindling sychophants cream off a whole bundle of my hard earned cash every month and spend it on BOLLOCKS!
You can hear the NHS groaning and creaking like a dead train, decaying in a forgotten and overgrown railway siding, probably somewhere outside of Woking.
I received a letter the other day informing me that I had not booked an appointment for The Procedure. It also said that if I had booked an appointment, to please disregard the letter.
Well, of course, I had booked so I did exactly that. Ignored the letter. These things sometimes get sent out by mistake; better to be safe rather than sorry where this kind of thing is concerned.
Until today it materialised that the hospital cancelled my appointment.
And NEGLECTED TO TELL ME.
My GP informs me of the urgency of the situation. I must rebook immediately. I call the NHS Appointments line (while running down the road to the station) deciding that perhaps speaking to an individual is the safest way to go, and that way I can ask for an explanation as to why nobody contacted me about The (now lack of Procedure.
Dopey on the end of the line tells me that I didn’t book. I argue that I did. She has to put me on hold. Then she comes back and admits that I did book, and that the hospital cancelled. I KNOW, WOMAN! THAT IS WHY I AM CALLING YOU!!
The earliest appointment now is 9am on 5 November. I irritably tell her to book me in for that then, and let’s be hoping that I don’t die before these arseholes get their act in gear and cut these bastard cells out.
Later, as I emerge from Victoria train station, blinking in the light and hating all the prats crowded around the underground entrance (closed again – you’d’ve thought that these people would find other ways to work, this happens so often!) and my phone beeps to inform me I have a voicemail.
Dopey #2 from St George’s Hospital has left me a message telling me that I have made a duplicate appointment.
WHAT?!
The message continues.
Apparently I have a 10am appointment on Thursday 18 October 2007 and she wants to know why I have booked another appointment for 5 November as this is a serious procedure. She is assuming I want the 18 October appointment and so cancelling the November one. Can I call her back?
1. The October appointment is news to me.
2. If I just made an appointment, literally, just 20 minutes beforehand, for the 5 November, what makes her “ASSUME” that I want the October one? (Ok, I do want the October one, but I didn’t even know about it!!) If I did want the November one over the October one, her “assumption” would only serve to make me EVEN MORE cross about this whole debacle. If that is possible.
3. I have been calling you back, woman. Calling and calling since I picked up the message at 8.55am. And you DON’T FUCKING ANSWER! I left you THREE voicemails. No response.
So, there you go Gordon. There you go Darling. You bastards keep taking my taxes and wasting it on whatever it is you waste it on. I am still looking for a new job.
In another FUCKING COUNTRY!!!
What’s the betting another appointment will have suddenly appeared before the day is out…? Arseholes.
It’s not any better here. Seriously.
It’s all confirmed now. The Procedure is on 18 Oct. Mep.
It’s almost enough to make you go private isn’t it. I had a medical check at the beginning of the year and it went so smoothly that I seriously considered giving them some of my own money in addition to being robbed by the tax man each month.
You make a booking, they confirm in writing telling you exactly what they will do and then they do it. More than that they treat you like a customer while you’re there rather than a lump of inconveniently placed meat that is starting to attract flies.
*sob*
Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sure that your cervix is lovely and not at all rancid. In fact I dare say that it attracts a whole different kind of creature totally unrelated to flies.
I really should learn when to stop speaking (typing).
Hmm, given my past form, I think the creature of which you speak is actually closer-related to flies than you give credit for.
Meh.
The problem is that the proportion of responsible jobs vastly exceeds the proportion of responsible people, such that a great many people doing responsible jobs are fit only for menial work.
And best wishes for The Procedure.
Good luck with navigating the NHS and best of success with your Procedure… and frankly, I hope you’re serious about the other country. You may go (I did) and come back (I did) but you will be wiser and healthier.
Only downside is that other countries sometimes keep to the right. So I eagerly look forward to a reprise of your earlier diagram in (insert name of language of other country you went to work/live in).
Keeping to the right is fine… so long as you are on an escalator.
Sometimes it amazes me that the NHS can be so inept, but then I look at the many layers of managers they have rather than clinicians and it all kind of makes sense then.
Anyhow, here’s to it all going smoothly, then I can buy you a pint of 6X :p
I’ll have a pino grigio actually!!!!
Wise choice I’d say!