A man goes to the doctor

My brother-in-law D. gave me an interesting insight into the British medical establishment the other day... You see, in Holland, you have your GP. And if there's anything wrong with you, that's who you make an appointment with. In my case, that means that you drop by yourself, because if you call the assistants will not be available. If they even pick up the phone, they will berate you for not calling at the time that they have set for making appointments. The conversation will go something like this:

'Hello, I would like to make an appointment to see my GP, please.'
'We don't take appointments at this time.'
'Ah. Why not?'
'Because we don't. If you want an appointment, then you have to call at another time.'
'And what time is that?'
'I'm not telling you. You'll have to call back at another time to find out.'
'Ah. So at what time can I call you to find out the time at which I can call you to make an appointment?'
'You'd have to call on Thursday morning between 3 am and 3.08 am.'
'Right... You realise that at that time, the world is normally asleep?'
'You needn't talk to me in such a fashion!!!

This is generally followed by the sound of the phone being smashed down. Of course, at 3.06 am on the following Thursday morning, you then find out that the appropriated time to call for actually making an appointment will be on Wednesday between 11.43 and 11.52 PM, by which time you'll either have recovered, or you'll have dropped dead. In either case, the assistants are virtually never bothered on the Wednesday night, which is probably the point.

Needless to say, I've always been extremely glad that I've never had to make an appointment with my doctor for a ruptured appendix or something similarly life-threatening, because I'm sure the assistants at my local surgery are doing their utmost to bring down the world's overpopulation.

However, in England they have, besides the GP surgery, a wonderful invention called a walk-in clinic. This is meant for people who do not have a GP, or who do not have the time, energy or ability to deal with the kind of palaver described above (I suppose that explains why so many doctors are excellent golf-players...) At least, I thought it was a wonderful invention. You see, D. had to see a doctor for tonsillitis (painful, annoying, but hardly deadly). Being sick, he did not have the energy to deal with the dreaded assistant and decided to go to his local walk-in clinic instead. And here's the thing.

The assistant asked him if he had an appointment.

All the doctors, you see, were on a training session. When he answered that he did not have an appointment (hardly surprising, it was, after all, a WALK-IN CLINIC!) he was told he had to make one. And then the nurse actually gave him a phone number AND a telephone to call a company on the other side of the country to make an appointment for the clinic he was in, on the day he was there!

I'm currently considering asking my Dutch GP if he'd be interested to pack up his surgery in Holland and setting up shop in England instead, nurses and all...