We're not that bad
Published by Nick Hall on 26 October 2009.The ear thermometer hit 38.9 degrees on Friday night, so my wife and I took our glassy-eyed daughter to the nearest children's walk-in clinic up the road from our house. Once there, we were told there would be a 40-minute or so wait to see a physician. Fine, we both thought.
We shuffled into the waiting area to sit quietly amongst 20 or so other families and their sick kids. Bee movie was playing, and as I sat there wondering why they felt it necessary to have bees drive cars in the film, time slowly passed. I also noticed that the magazine rack, rich with disease-ridden copies of Chatelaine and Sports Illustrated, was positioned behind an open glass door, making it impossible to get at except when they're closed for business.
About an hour later, I wandered up the reception desk and quietly asked how much longer we might have to wait, and casually inquired as to the number of doctors working. I was treated to a well rehearsed (though panicked) excuse about how there's only one doctor on, and that the wait was 40 minutes but it's not anymore (really?), and that at the hospital they're waiting up to 8 hours, and sometimes they work till 11 pm, so - and I quote - "we're not actually that bad".
Not that bad. Now there's a business model.
Look, I know there's a lot of demand for their services this time of year (this one in particular, it seems).
Why don't they?
Could they not get another doctor in for those precious few hours? And even if they couldn't, how about some sort of a triage set up where a nurse could quickly assess the need first and provide some sort of hierarchy? We weren't expecting a cure, after all, just some peace of mind.
Let's say they strive to rise from "not that bad" to "pretty good", or hey, let's go way out on a limb and reach for the golden ring with "awesome" engraved on it. What is there to lose? Certainly not potential customers.
Oh I know some of you are going to be thinking "well they're just people and there's a lot of sick people lately and give them a break and blah, blah, blah".
No. No more breaks. I've had it with cutting organizations slack for poor performance. And until we all start to squeak a little more about this type of thing, to question inadequacy and make our opinions heard, nothing is going to change.
To be fair, the doctor that did finally see us saved the experience. Shame the process that led up to her did nothing to lead us to expect it.