My hospital appointment arrived yesterday. Oh dear. What went wrong?
My GP asked that I be seen at the ophthalmology clinic at my local hospital in a time frame of 8 weeks at most. She told me she expected I'd be seen before the end of October (at the 6 week end of the window).
Not only does the appointment miss the upper end of the 8 week window, making it about 3 months since the optician said they thought I should see the ophthalmologist in 'about 2 months' time', but it also sends me to a hospital that's impossible to get to if you can't drive (and they've advised me that I may not be able to because of the tests they want to carry out, so I should make alternative arrangements)! Of course, they assume family or friends will drive me there and back - the whole 45 minutes in each direction with a following wind and no other traffic on the road! - pay the massive parking fees and hang around while I sit in line waiting to see the consultant or a registrar. It never ceases to amaze me, as I found when I was undergoing surgery and radiotherapy almost six years ago now, that medical personnel cannot conceive that someone may have no family in the vicinity and may not have friends who can simply drop everything in the middle of the working week to take a day to ferry someone around the country! Even if you tell them this, they don't believe you, as I discovered when the promised social worker help didn't materialise when I was discharged after surgery; indeed, I was told that I'd 'just have to pay to get someone to come in privately', the expectation being that I'd be able to afford to do that.
What this mess means is that I'll have to go back to my GP, who's very popular and difficult to get an appointment with, to ask her to sort this out. It could mean yet another delay. Lucky it's not 'urgent', isn't it?
What is the point of specifying x and then being told you have to do y? We're supposed to be able to choose where we go!
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