Back in 1992 I adopted a new young Doctor who had started a practice in the local area. We were one of the first patients and my boys are still under her care. A couple of other Doctors also held surgery there and I enjoyed having “my” doctor and when I wished, one of the other doctors. About a year ago it all split up and my GP went into flash, and no doubt expensive rooms, with other Doctors, two of whom they describe as “walk-in doctors” ie you can walk in without an appointment and see the doc, when you want, 12 hours a day.
The other doctor I had got to know went off to a rather dreary looking surgery and I missed the opportunity to see him. Nowadays, you need to “sign up” to one surgery or the visits cost quite a lot of money. How it works is that the surgery receives a set amount of funding for you and so it’s in their interests to ensure that you are well and don’t actually have to see the doctor (assuming I guess that the $40 or so you do pay is not an incentive). It also means that from a customer relations perspective, there is no incentive to look after the signed up patients.
Which is what I discovered this afternoon. Phoning earlier I lamented, yet again, no-one there knows me, that everytime I phone I need to explain who I am etc etc. What?! Have I phoned the District Health Board? Feels like it as a series of recorded messages describe how I can leave a message to get a script completed. Optimistically, I attended at the rooms several hours later to collect my script to be told, in the third person, that “he left a message two hours ago and it takes 24 hours to have a script completed”. “Who is he?” I enquired, to discover the person who had hurriedly come from the bowels of the place, was in fact talking about me. I discovered that the script had been completed but not signed. “So can I wait for the doctor to sign the script?”. ”Oh no, you can’t, it takes 24 hours”. ”So this is a medical practice without a doctor”. “No, but we only have walk-in doctors and they can’t sign”.
I found my part-time Doctor in the dreary looking rooms not far away and paid him a visit. I walked in, and he saw me straight away – couple of things I’d been saving up, got some forms for blood tests, he did my BP, got a flu jab, the prescription and yeah, it cost me $69 cos I’m not “signed up” yet.
I went back to the flash doctor’s rooms because they’ve got a pharmacy in the building. One of the walk-in doctors walked in and gave me a friendly wave. I waved back, but I might as well have been waving farewell. I guess all those uniforms, lease, imagery cost a lot of money. But you can’t buy loyalty with that stuff. Or it seems, a doctor who can sign.
Running along the waterfront this evening (well actually yesterday now) I took a diversion into Queen’s wharf where tied up at the wharf are two Chinese Defence (or as the security guard said “war”) ships. The crisp blue uniforms of the sailors were striking as they walked backwards and forwards from the ship. Some were practicing their marching on the wharf. What is the Chinese Navy doing in Auckland? As you look up from Queen’s wharf the HSBC tower is prominent and there were traders selling dozens of wool duvets in a makeshift stall in the shed so maybe they got lost and thought they were in Hong Kong.
