Oh my God! How much more difficult can this be? Much more than one might imagine, I guess.
After my failure yesterday to accomplish the ostensibly simple task of picking up a medication from my neurologist at Kasih Ibu Hospital, I hit Kasih Ibu again this morning, confident that the prescription would be waiting for me in the ER, as supposedly arranged the day before yesterday.
But no, the people in the ER have never heard of the matter, nor has the doctor contacted them nor written the prescription nor sent it to the ER as he was to have done yesterday.
I am told to have a seat. Tunggu, as usual. Wait. After a considerable time, a hospital employee emerges, asks me to follow him, and ushers me back to a seat outside the doctor's office.
He goes away while I'm still catching up in my mind. Wait a minute. What are we doing? Maybe the doctor just wants to personally hand me the prescription? Like he misses me or something and wants to say hi?
It dawns on me that what I am doing in this seat is waiting for an official visit with the doctor. An examination. To the tune of 800.000 Rupiah.
Oh hell no!
So I go back to the ER and explain to them that they have misunderstood my purpose here. All I'm doing is waiting for a written prescription from the doctor, for God's sake! Just like every other month in the last year!
Jeeze.
Ah, but they're catching on now. Moreover, a young woman employee who was here yesterday shows up. My lucky stars!
As it turns out, I end up getting two prescriptions--one direct from the doctor, one from the ER according to the doctor's orders of yesterday, which all means that I will not need to return for quite some time, thank goodness.
This is institutionalized confusion, folks, salted deeply into the fabric of the Indonesian healthcare industry, and every other industry to boot! God forbid that one actually ends up ill and in desperate need of urgent, or competent, care.
After my failure yesterday to accomplish the ostensibly simple task of picking up a medication from my neurologist at Kasih Ibu Hospital, I hit Kasih Ibu again this morning, confident that the prescription would be waiting for me in the ER, as supposedly arranged the day before yesterday.
But no, the people in the ER have never heard of the matter, nor has the doctor contacted them nor written the prescription nor sent it to the ER as he was to have done yesterday.
I am told to have a seat. Tunggu, as usual. Wait. After a considerable time, a hospital employee emerges, asks me to follow him, and ushers me back to a seat outside the doctor's office.
He goes away while I'm still catching up in my mind. Wait a minute. What are we doing? Maybe the doctor just wants to personally hand me the prescription? Like he misses me or something and wants to say hi?
It dawns on me that what I am doing in this seat is waiting for an official visit with the doctor. An examination. To the tune of 800.000 Rupiah.
Oh hell no!
So I go back to the ER and explain to them that they have misunderstood my purpose here. All I'm doing is waiting for a written prescription from the doctor, for God's sake! Just like every other month in the last year!
Jeeze.
Ah, but they're catching on now. Moreover, a young woman employee who was here yesterday shows up. My lucky stars!
As it turns out, I end up getting two prescriptions--one direct from the doctor, one from the ER according to the doctor's orders of yesterday, which all means that I will not need to return for quite some time, thank goodness.
This is institutionalized confusion, folks, salted deeply into the fabric of the Indonesian healthcare industry, and every other industry to boot! God forbid that one actually ends up ill and in desperate need of urgent, or competent, care.
No comments:
Post a Comment