0850: Check NHS website for opening hours of West Didsbury walk-in centre, and find them to be 11am until 9pm.
1030: Walk to West Didsbury walk-in centre, only to be told it's closed for refubishments until 4pm, and get advised to go to Burnage Walk-in centre instead.
1115: Arrive at Burnage walk-in centre, where a considerable queue has built up since it opened at 8am, and cheerily accept that there'll be a wait on the cards. Sit down, and get rather into Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma.
1330: See a nurse at Burnage walk-in centre, who suggests going to A&E at the MRI to see a doctor.
1415: Arrive at A&E at the MRI.
1430: Triage. Tell the triage nurse what the nurse at Burnage walk-in centre has said. Retire to one's seat, with Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma. Start to get frustrated at the contrived nature of the novel's plotting.
1700: Get called up, amongst a bunch of others, to follow the traige nurse through to... the MRI walk-in centre. Wait a second - couldn't I have come straight here at 8.30am?
1730: Finish Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma in disgust. What a tacked-on ending, what a cop-out, and what a rip-off. What an unsatisfying deus ex machina. Feel glad that it only cost me £2, and in a charity shop too, as I'd have been disgusted if my money had gone on to line the pockets of the writer or the publisher of that toss.
1745: Breathe immense sigh of relief as Pippa comes to wait with me.
1825: Finally get to see... a nurse. Third nurse of the day, in fact. In a virtually word-for-word repeat of what I'd heard at Burnage walk-in centre, agree that it'd probably be a good idea to get a doctor's opinion on this.
1845: Having seen a doctor eight hours after turning up at my local walk-in centre, head home.
No comments:
Post a Comment