I had a home sleep study,
results analysed by sleep consultant guy at hospital who wrote a report,
now I want to see the report.
I called the hospital and asked if I could be sent a copy of the report.
No.
I asked why I couldnt see the report.
I was told I needed to make an appointment to see the consultant.
Reluctantly I said OK, when could I have an appointment.
4 months.
Ah, you are having an arabic jest with an unworthy infidel, no really, when could I see the consultant to see my report.
4 months.
OK, can I come down to the hospital and see the report.
No, but the consultant has a open appointments session on Monday, you could try to see him then.
So , Monday comes. I drive 77KM to the hospital and I go straight to the sleep clinic consulting room, not the diseased waiting room. There is a smiling Pakistani lady in a white coat sitting at a computer.
I smiled and said, "Hello, my name is George O'Neill. The consultant has written a report on my home sleep study. Is it possible for me to just read the report?".
The lady looked puzzled and said, "Of course, why should you not see your own report, please sit down.". She did a bit of typing, got up, left the room, came back within 10 seconds and handed me my report.
My experience with the ninjas had left me totally unprepared for meeting someone who genuinely wanted to be helpful. I greedily read my report.
The diagnosis was clear, I definitely had obstructive sleep apnea. I actually felt relieved and was quite emotional.
"OK, what is the next step?" I asked the lady.
"You need to make an appointment to see the consultant and then you need to have a full overnight sleep study. This sleep study will include testing you with a cpap."
"DO I make the appointment with you?", I asked in a please-god-dont-make-me-deal-with-the-ninjas-again voice.
"No, you must go to the reception desk and make an appointment there".
My heart sank, my stomach churned and I felt a great need for a bowel movement. With drooped shoulders I shuffled over to the ninja desk.
"I would like to make an appointment to see Dr Ali please.", I said with a smile to the resident ninja.
Talking to someone wearing a veil is strange for me. You cant see any of the face, not even the eyebrows. There is a very thin slit across the eyes and its hard not to try and read expressions in the face. This can be misconstrued as staring and the whole point of the veil is to stop men staring. You can be jailed for staring at a lady with a veil and I was acutely aware of this.
She looked at me and placed her mobile phone to her ear and started talking. She extended her gloved hand in my direction. I had no idea what to put in the hand so I asked in a very sheepish, please-dont-kill-me voice, what she wanted.
She muttered something on the mobile and made a big show of the fact that I had interrupted he call and she was now very pissed off. Sh waved the mobile in mid-air and said, "Appointment card", her other hand still outstretched.
"I dont have an appointment card", I said, cringing at the thought of the biblical retribution in store for me for my deeply offensive use of words to resolve a situation.
"First appointment?", curious-ninja asked.
"No, I have already seen the consultant, I just need to see him again to discuss the report he has written.", I bleated.
"No appointment.", she said and immediately turned her swivel chair so that she was facing away from me and she loudly resumed her call.
"Why cant I have an appointment?", I asked in a very calm voice.
She ignored me.
"Why cant I have an appointment?", I asked in a very loud hear-me-at-the-back-of-the-room teacher voice.
Call-interrupted-ninja swung round to me and very angrily shouted, "First appointment needs referral letter".
"Its not a first appointment. I have seen the consultant and he has written a report on me and I need to discuss the report with him.", I said in a quieter voice.
I waved the report in the air. "This is the report he wrote about me. My name and his name are at the top of the report. Can I please have an appointment?", I said very, very slowly.
Happy-ninja now just slowly rotated in her chair and completely ignored me. I no longer existed to her. She resumed her call.
So there I was. Diagnosed with an illness but I was not able to progress to get treatment because a grumpy ninja would not give me an appointment. It occurred to me that in the UK a receptionist would, quite rightly, be fired for what the ninja had just done. She was the person assigned the task of making appointments for sick people with doctors so that they could get better and she clearly considered the job as a nuisance. I wondered how many sick people died because she didnt let them have access to doctors. To be honest, it turned my stomach and made me feel very sad for the hundreds of people who needed to rely on this system for medical treatment. It was inhuman.
I walked back to the room where the smiling Pakistani lady sat. I explained that the ninja would not give me an appointment. I was so angry I could barely speak. She took my report and walked over to the happy-talking-on-her-mobile-ninja herself. There was a lot of arm waving, pointing to the report, upturned palms and eventually, typing on the computer. 15 minutes of verbal ju-jitsu later, I had my appointment with the consultant AND an appointment for the sleep study the day after seeing the consultant. It was in four months, but, it was all that was available.
I still to this day cannot believe how downright nasty that ninja was. She didnt care. I needed to see a doctor and she didnt care. She actually went out of her way to try to prevent me from seeing a doctor. Truly despicable, yet as I have learned, completely consistent in the middle east.
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