Day +98: 9.30AM is NOT Midday!

Why do we bother making an appointment to see a doctor when the doctor is NEVER on time?

Seriously, Dr Barbaric is the world's worst time manager I have ever had the displeasure of meeting and/or working with. Of all the times we have had to see her for Clinic, she has been on time less than 5 times. LESS than 5 times. Every other time, we were made to wait for up to 90 minutes to see her.

And today was no exception. But today was the worst experience of all. We didn't see Dr Barbaric until nearly midday. Two and a half hours AFTER our appointment.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

I do often wonder if the doctors cared that my time was worth something too. I know they are important people, and I know they must finish their morning rounds before starting with the patients in Clinic, but if we are told that we must be at the ward by 8am for bloods to be drawn, and then told to wait until 9.30am to see the doctor, then I expect to be able to leave the hospital by 10.30am at the very latest. Most weeks, we are lucky to be getting into our car at 11am.

Often, when the doctors were running late, I would be given an update on where they were, and what was holding them up. Patients who were still undergoing treatment and were for all intents and purposes living in the hospital would get first priority, and if something had come up with one of those patients, then the doctors would dump everything and see to that patient first. Being an "outpatient", Sean would drop down the list and we would have no choice but to sit and wait. The nurses in C2N would try to be as sympathetic as possible, but inevitably, we would get shunted from the isolation room into the recovery room, where there was no TV and nothing to distract Sean with.

Now, let me say that I do not begrudge this priority system. Before we were formally discharged from hospital post transplant, I expected the doctors to drop everything to look after Sean if something went wrong. Fortunately for us, nothing went terribly wrong, and none of the doctors had to rush to look after us at any point. A lot of the other patients in the Oncology ward, especially on the Bone Marrow Transplant side of the ward, weren't so lucky, and needed a lot of the doctors' attention. Now that Sean was an "out-patient", it is only fair that those more needy than us are seen to before us.

Morning rounds normally took place around 8am, which meant that by 9.30am, the doctors would be almost if not ready to start the clinic appointments. Since we were formally discharged in April, we had been booking the 9.30am appointment for our weekly visit, as we quickly found out our 9.30am appointments would, more often than not, happen a bit later than 9.30am.

With Sean still not having reached the Day +100 milestone, I was quite reluctant to be put in a shared ward to wait for the doctor, so when we checked in this morning, I asked for an isolation room for Sean. Today, we didn't even have the luxury of an isolation room. As if everyone knew Dr Barbaric would be ridiculously late, we were shown to the recovery room as soon as we arrived. I immediately asked for the portable TV to be brought to the room, and thankfully, it arrived without too much hassle.

9.30am came and went. No doctor. We waited.
10.00am came and went. Still no doctor. We waited some more.
10.30am came and went. Doctor MIA. None of the nurses knew where Dr Barbaric was. My blood was starting to boil now.
11.00am came and went. Still no word on where the doctor was. Steam was visibly gushing out of my nose and ears by this point.
11.30am came and went. I was seeing red, and I did not want to wait any longer.

By now, Sean was asleep in the pram, and I was well and truly over waiting. I packed up our things and headed for the door, only to be stopped by a number of nurses, who told me I must wait for Dr Barbaric because there were some abnormalities in Sean's blood test results. I was in two minds about staying to hear what the abnormalities were, and in the end, the sensible mother in me turned around and headed back to the recovery room to wait. I asked for the 10th time if anyone knew where Dr Barbaric was, and every person I asked gave me a blank look and told me they had no idea where she was, or if she was even in the hospital.

Another 20 minutes passed before we saw Dr Barbaric. Yes, at 11.50am, Dr Barbaric finally saw fit to come and see us. Sean was well and truly asleep, and she wanted to wake him and have a look at him. I refused to let her touch him, as I felt he needed his sleep more than he needed to be examined by someone who made us wait 2.5 hours to see him. I gave her a run-down on how well Sean had been over the past week, and told her how great his skin looked, etc. Still, she wanted to examine Sean, and only after quite a bit of pleading from Dr Barbaric that I relented and shook Sean awake to undress him for the examination. Sean was not impressed.

Our appointment was over in less than 5 minutes. We were sent on our way with nothing more said about the "abnormalities" in the blood test results. In fact, the nurses were lying when they told me about the "abnormalities" - they only said it to shock me into staying in the hospital. I wonder who I can sue for this. So angry.

Seriously, why the fuck do we bother making an appointment if the doctors don't see us even remotely close to the time of the appointment???

Sean cried inconsolably after being woken up from his nap to be prodded and poked by Dr Barbaric, and cried the whole way to the car, and cried the whole way home. Only after we came through the front door did Sean finally stop crying, but he was very clingy for the rest of the day as he was overwrought and oh so tired from his interrupted nap.

It will take a few days before I will get over my seething today. I detest being forced to wait in a sterile room with nothing to entertain my bored toddler, with no real updates from any of the nursing staff as to why our 9.30am appointment was running so very very late. My time is worth something too, damn it. Just because stay-at-home mums don't get paid to do their job, doesn't mean that my time is not important. I had things I wanted to do today, but because our appointment ran 2.5 hours late, I had to put off those errands until tomorrow.

Grrrr... I think I need to write a nasty letter to someone to say something about this. Today was beyond a joke.

Updated on 20 July 2012

I got a speeding ticket in the mail, courtesy of my highly agitated state after waiting half a day to see the frigging doctor. I was clocked doing 60km/hr in a 50km/hr zone down Cleveland Street in Moore Park. For my troubles, I also copped 1 demerit point. I should make Dr Barbaric pay this fine. GRRRR!!!