What A Fun Way To Waste An Afternoon!

Hari continued to have contact with hospitals through weekly physio sessions and regular outpatients appointments at St. Michael's hospital. (BMH)

The outpatients appointments were a nightmare!

Now I realise that clinics can run late for a variety of reasons but this should never be because people who have later appointments arrive early and get seen almost immediately!

Because I had to get back in time for my eldest daughter coming home from nursery, I always booked an appointment that was near to the clinic start time - not that this was a great deal of use!

The clinic was chaotic and disorganised. The doctor appeared to see patients in whatever order he chose. Patients with appointments at the end of the clinic would arrive early - knowing that they would be seen very quickly - even though that meant that people with earlier appointments would have to wait longer. Indeed we would arrive and wait - aware that the same doctor was seeing patients who's appointment was two and a half hours after ours! This was a practice that was unacceptable both for the patients and the nurses running the clinics. We believe that this practice has now been stopped -but maybe you know different!


It wasn't unusual for us to have to leave without being seen, in order to get home in time for my eldest daughter. When you are forced to leave without being seen it was common practice for them to record in the notes the term 'DNA' - nothing to do with genetics - it stands for 'did not attend' - they didn't seem to realise the difference between not arriving and arriving but not being seen due to the chaotic organisation of their systems!

Finally the doctor seemed to realise that his method of sticking to appointment order wasn't working and he began to see us relatively close to the appointment time. I hope that he was doing this for other people too!