Waiting-room jitters: Channelling chaos

by Aditha Dissanayake

You sure try not to be there anymore than you have to. But every now and then it becomes a "must". So, there you are, bored to death, simply sitting there and waiting, clutching the white piece of paper which meticulously states your appointment is precisely at 16.36, but even by 18.36 with no signs that the ordeal will end.

As the hours tick by, to stop yourself from feeling jittery and to stop your heart-rate and blood pressure from reaching astronomical heights, you take your eyes off the wall with the posters describing various diseases and start to look at the other people waiting, trying to figure out why they may be there or go through the well thumped magazines lying around, published almost ten years ago.

Impatient, frustrated, and stressed you are mentally exhausted by the time the breathless female voice says 'Patients to see....please come to room number 00". By the time the nurse calls your name, having waited for more than three hours you are so tired, and so eager to leave, you find you have almost forgotten why you made the appointment.

Where are you? Surely the answer is easy. In a private hospital waiting to see a doctor you have "channelled".

If you are someone who often seeks the cures provided by Western medicine, you would know that most clinics follow the first come, first served policy and it's not unusual to have patients come at six in the morning to make an appointment even if the doctor's clinic hours start at 6 in the evening.

A patient from Katubedde, for example, sends her driver at five in the morning, to a private hospital in Colombo, to get an appointment, but laments that however early he goes she always gets a number like ten or eleven. Patients from the provinces come a day early, lodge with an acquaintance in town, to be among the early ones. They come by bus, by train, in three-wheelers, from all over the country. So, what's a few more hours of waiting if the doctor gets delayed?

How do you while away the time? Sit in stony silence, brood over your thoughts and fears? Or strike up a conversation with the patient seated next to you? Try the latter and the chances are you will get an earful of wrath aimed at the doctors who give appointments precisely to the last second but fail to keep them and turn up at the clinic, at least three hours late.

'The last time I visited him (the doctor) even before I entered the room he was writing a prescription for me. He must have diagnosed me from the sound of my footsteps! After making me wait for three hours he spent less than five minutes with me." says one disgruntled patient. "Does it hurt here? Here? Breath in. Breath out. He asked me. Then he suggested I have some tests done and come back with them.

I tried to ask a couple of questions but he plain ignored me" He explains further, opening the file filled with reports in his hands and saying he hoped the doctor will be able to prescribe some medicine for him on this visit. 'If he asks me to do more tests I'm going to switch doctors" he threatens.

When I try to argue that Doctors suffer as much as those in the waiting room, getting delayed because they might be coming from a meeting or lecture, or from another hospital and may not have time to spend with the patients the outrage against them increases.

One after the other, the patients who have known what it's like to wait for a doctor they have channelled, begin to voice their thoughts. "If a Doctor consistently runs 1 hour behind by noon its not difficult to figure out that you need to lighten the load or at least tell the 11:30 patient that 11:30 really means 12:30. Its not that hard to do. Yet they fail to do it". Says Wijeratne (*names have been changed) a Marketing Executive of a Trading company in Kelaniya.

"One factor that really bothers me about the additional waiting is that this means I have to expose my son to all the sickness and illness of all the other patients for a longer time than is necessary." Says Shantha, a mother stroking the forehead of the little boy on her lap.

"I once waited for over an hour for a doctor who met me with no apologies and rushed me through the appointment. This doctor always runs behind. Everyone understands the occasional late appointment but when I have to take time off from work to go to an appointment that ends up taking over 3 times longer than expected, consistently, it's difficult to keep my temper". Says Nihal, an Administrative Officer from Kalutara.

"It's My time, money and my health." He elaborates further. "I understand that sometimes unforeseeable circumstances do occur. When this happens why can't the lady who issues the appointments tell me - how far behind the doctor is, give me the option to reschedule, etc.

Every appointment with my doctor always results in a whole evening of waiting. The last time I had an appointment, I waited two hours past my scheduled time with not so much as a single word of explanation. I finally just walked out... evidently I wasn't missed - haven't heard a word from the hospital since, even though they wrote down my address and telephone number when they gave me the appointment." Listening to him, channeling a doctor seems to really hurt.

Niroshan, a medical assistant in a private hospital in Galle who earns Rs. 120 a day says "As much as I love looking after sick people if I could find another job, I will leave tomorrow. Everything has turned into a money making business. Everyone is to blame - the politicians, and the big executives running the medical industry and those doctors who allow themselves to be governed by their rules.

They will do anything for MONEY."

While this remains a point open for debate what cannot be denied is that when a patient channels a doctor and is given an appointment at 18:46, he or she, more or less expects to be seen at that time, or at least, shortly thereafter. So, here is wishing for a magic pill that would make all medical providers to stay on schedule when they are channelled by patients seeking their healing prowesses.

Till then... remember the word in French means "to wait", make the best of the empty hours in the lobby of a hospital, start playing the "guess-why-he-is-here" game. Happy waiting!

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Cures for the dreaded waiting-room syndrome

Once you have learnt of the time for the appointment, go prepared to wait at least two hours after the scheduled time. To make sure you spend it in a productive or entertaining way, take the following things with you

Your own reading material. Don't force yourself to read what is in the doctor's waiting-room; i.e magazines about kids when you don't have kids, or cricket when you are not a sports enthusiast. Take your own magazines, books or other reading material.

Take your mobile phone. Please note that this does not mean having loud conversations, disturbing the other patients while you wait. If you really feel like talking to someone, go outside to do so. But you can use the phone to SMS or spend the time to organize your phone book or to silently play games. Note again: this does not include choosing a new ring tone for your phone while you wait.

Your work; If you are used to taking your work home, take it to the doctor's too. If it can keep you busy at home, it will keep you busy in the waiting room.

Think of questions: This will help when you finally get to see the doctor so that you will not forget and find yourself flooded with questions you should have asked him after you come home.

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