My hospital killed me, I learned today.
It was part of a mix-up caused by our dinosaur (actually, it was my fault as I let her chew up my appointment reservation slip without noting any information that it contained, and then taking too long to follow up on it).
Normally, every three months I go for a routine check-up to the hospital, where I have been receiving treatment for the past 15 years.
I’d last visited in March, so knew I was due to go back again, and rang through during the week to book an appointment for this morning. I sensed something was amiss as I was told I would need to re-register, and asked many questions by a social worker, but assumed at the time that this was because I’d called when my doctor wasn’t rostered on. The appointment was set and I got to the hospital trouble-free (despite having gone there on the notoriously fickle Death Machine and arrived there much earlier because I didn’t need any of the time I had set aside in the event of strife).
I was shocked when a nurse came out to greet me and took me to the main wing of the hospital, where I needed to fill out countless numbers of forms. The nurse then escorted me back to the annex I normally meet my doctor and put me through a number of health checks that I passed with flying colors, and finally sat and waited to be called, as I was a few minutes later.
“It’s so great you’re alive,” my doctor exclaimed happily as I walked through the door of his consultation room, still a little baffled. It turned out that after my March consultation, my doctor and I had agreed on a follow-up in April, not three months ahead as would normally be the case. When I didn’t show up, nor contact the hospital in any way over the ensuing months, he and others feared the worse. Suddenly, I understood all the need for the paperwork and rigmarole they put me through before the consultation. (At least they didn’t make pay for it over again!) “We thought you were dead!”
