Clusterfuck in the O.R.

As most of you know, I have been waiting anxiously to have my surgery performed down at St. Paul’s. About two weeks ago, I had a meeting at the hospital with my surgeon (where I sat and waited for three hours just to sign a few forms) where we discussed the surgery date (which was supposed to be this week), and a few of the details. I called last Thursday to try and nail down an exact date, but they said they wouldn’t be able to give me one.

So today, I called down to the doctor’s office to find out what was going on. I was told that for some reason, nobody even submitted my name into the queue for surgery, so I’m been sitting around waiting for no reason. Somebody screwed up. Again.

The next obvious option is to put me on the list for next week, which isn’t that bad since I’ll be able to have surgery with my plastic surgeon (who is performing surgery in the OR next week). Sounds easy right? Nope. They want me to come back into the same clinic where I waited three hours last time and talk. About what? Who the fuck knows — nobody could tell me, but apparently it’s standard procedure, and standard is good right?

So while I realize it’s not the receptionist’s fault that all of this is unfolding the way it is, I let her know just how frustrating I find this, and how embarassing I think it is for the medical community. The problem is that there really is no accountability. Nobody can tell me who screwed up, and nobody wants to take responsibility for the screw up. Instead of finding a way to make it easier for me, they are quite content to solve the situation by having me take more time off work to talk about the same thing I talked about last time.