Adventures in "emergency"
I noticed a blind spot in my eye on Friday after a particularly violent coughing fit (viral infection following my trip to Hobart), and got in to see the optometrist yesterday at 12. It's a little bit of blood - similar to what I got about 8-9 years ago after falling off a stool while painting (don't ask, was stupid!) - but the proximity to my central vision and the freshness of the injury made him want to get it looked at ASAP. (Looking at an icon on a windows desktop at the usual distance, with my other eye covered, I can't see most of the icon underneath it.)
The Canberra Eye Hospital isn't contactable on the weekend, so he told me to head to the emergency department at Garran and ask to see their on-call ophthalmologist. So we had lunch, and headed over there with my referral letter, eye photo disc, and much trepidation on my part: Curufea hadn't been to one before so he was just thinking that it might be an hour or so if they had to call someone in, but I know someone who spent most of a day lying on a trolley with her knee out of joint.
So, only four hours later I got to see a doctor to assess whether anyone needed to be called in - allegedly they wouldn't have needed to if the optometrist had directly called the ophthalmologist on call, but I don't know how they were supposed to know who was on call that day... She took my history and read my referral letter, thought she couldn't do a better exam, and called the registrar to ask to have the ophth. called. Apparently it didn't sound urgent enough or maybe the opth. is on the 'do not call' register, and she was told she had to examine me as well. She couldn't see the haemorrhage, and did a bunch of other tests as well to rule out causes (apparently my blood sugar is fine, which is nice to know) , and after a while came out to the waiting around to tell me she'd managed to get me into the hospital's eye clinic next Tuesday.
So, that was Saturday afternoon, from 12 to teatime. I was mildly disturbed after I read the referral she'd written because there were a bunch of wrong bits - I assume she'd been on duty for an awfully long time - and I really hope she's kept the proper referral on file for the clinic because I didn't get that back. The whole experience left me feeling pretty bleak (combination of the endless waiting while noone was assisted - like an airport in hell - and the guilt that I took up 40 min of someone else's time). Curufea was amazed that there was no sense of urgency about anything, for something called 'emergency.' Maybe it's how they discourage people from attending for minor problems since it's getting harder to find a bulk-billing doctor around here.
The Canberra Eye Hospital isn't contactable on the weekend, so he told me to head to the emergency department at Garran and ask to see their on-call ophthalmologist. So we had lunch, and headed over there with my referral letter, eye photo disc, and much trepidation on my part: Curufea hadn't been to one before so he was just thinking that it might be an hour or so if they had to call someone in, but I know someone who spent most of a day lying on a trolley with her knee out of joint.
So, only four hours later I got to see a doctor to assess whether anyone needed to be called in - allegedly they wouldn't have needed to if the optometrist had directly called the ophthalmologist on call, but I don't know how they were supposed to know who was on call that day... She took my history and read my referral letter, thought she couldn't do a better exam, and called the registrar to ask to have the ophth. called. Apparently it didn't sound urgent enough or maybe the opth. is on the 'do not call' register, and she was told she had to examine me as well. She couldn't see the haemorrhage, and did a bunch of other tests as well to rule out causes (apparently my blood sugar is fine, which is nice to know) , and after a while came out to the waiting around to tell me she'd managed to get me into the hospital's eye clinic next Tuesday.
So, that was Saturday afternoon, from 12 to teatime. I was mildly disturbed after I read the referral she'd written because there were a bunch of wrong bits - I assume she'd been on duty for an awfully long time - and I really hope she's kept the proper referral on file for the clinic because I didn't get that back. The whole experience left me feeling pretty bleak (combination of the endless waiting while noone was assisted - like an airport in hell - and the guilt that I took up 40 min of someone else's time). Curufea was amazed that there was no sense of urgency about anything, for something called 'emergency.' Maybe it's how they discourage people from attending for minor problems since it's getting harder to find a bulk-billing doctor around here.