I HAVEN’T BEEN ON A RANT FOR A WHILE, BUT NOW I’M PISSED

I haven’t been on a rant in a while but every now and then something happens that sets me off. I understand that my rants are not necessarily popular with all (or even most) of my readers. However, they do reflect my true person. If I hid behind political correctness, then I would just blend into the masses and no one would ever know what makes my clock, tick.

This all started on a day last week where both Deysi and I had to go to the Hospital for tests. Luckily we managed to get them at the same time, so one period of torture and then it would be over. My tests are only done about every 18 months or so. This is because I do not want to know in advance of what is going to be my end. I would much rather be surprised in the middle of the night in my own bed. However I do relent to some testing once in a while. Seems to make the old Doc happy. It is my part of ensuring that he will make his million dollars again this year. Anyway that sets the scene and off we go, early in order to get out in front of the crowds.

On arrival, I am delighted to see only 10 or 15 vehicles in the major parking lot, where usually you would find 200 or more. Nothing like a good pandemic to clear out the loiterers. Unbelievable, a few months earlier it was packed with people milling around or just plain socializing at the Hospital. What other explanation could there be. Well maybe when the media started shouting pandemic, all other ills were cured to make room for this new disaster. That may be, but I’m still of the opinion that 90% of the people crowded into the hospital on a normal day in 2019, had no reason to be there.

No wonder our health system is so stacked up that it takes months or years to have normal procedures performed. These thoughts alone were enough to send me well on my way to losing it. However, I thought, there is an upside here for old Jimbo. I would sail through my tests and be back on the street in minutes. Well how do you think that turned out?

A sidebar about all of these precautions is that NO COVID 19 patients are examined, treated of kept in the hospital in Courtenay, they are all sent to Nanaimo for exam and treatment. So it would seem that for all of the hype and ticker tape parades, our health care workers here are and were at no risk of being exposed to even the common cold. If you coughed near that hospital, your ass was off to Nanaimo. However having said this, they did and are still maxing out on the free PR and hero status heaped on them by the press.

Yup you guessed it. First we parked close, then we dismounted and breezed thru the entrance. I headed for testing but encountered a “manned” barricade where we were immediately stopped. It appeared to be, a health worker. It was hard to know because of the full 100% armor and hazmat suit. For a moment I thought I might have made a wrong turn and ended up at NASA. Then it started firing questions at us, which I could barely understand because of the 3 layers of face protection between my ears and the words. Deysi answered most of them and from what I could understand, you weren’t getting into this Hospital if you were sick or had any flu like symptoms. You were only allowed in if you were healthy. Seems a little bit backwards for a hospital, what.

Anyway we pass the health interrogation and are deemed fit to enter the hospital. Aaaaahhh now for a quick test and I am free. We rounded the corner and I finally discovered where everyone, from the 15 cars in the parking lot, were gathered. Now take a number, I’m number 11 and Deysi 12. Now a seat, spaced a few feet apart and wait our turn. I’m still very positive and have a good attitude. There were four desks in front of us for checking in and only 10 people in front of me. Deysi grabs her phone and puts her book on. I tell her, don’t get to comfy, you need to pay attention, we’ll be outta here shortly.

She awards me with a patient look, much like you would give a dog for shaking paws, rolls her eyes back in her head and goes into a trance. I’m on the edge of my seat, ready to pounce when they call out my ol’ lucky number 11. I anxiously watched the check-in desks to see them fill up with the first 4 people. Well to my surprise only one desk was occupied. There were another 4 staff, flitting back and forth, walking fast and looking worried. After 15 minutes the first person is checked in and goes to sit by the entrance doors to the testing area. Now there is nobody at the desks, and the one that had just finished the check-in got up and scurried away into the distance.

Another 10 minutes passes before another staff sits down and calls up patient number two. There is now a cluster of 4 staff/nurses/attendants standing behind the check-in desks and consumed in, what looks like, a union meeting (not sure of that, but that’s how my mind works). In any event they huddle together and continue chatting. Again after about 15 minutes the second one is checked in and goes over to the swinging doors and gets in line behind the first guy that had checked in.

Well, through this, I’m trying to be cool, but my temperature is slowly rising. I try to explain to Deysi what is taking place, but she only shushes me and tells me to be quiet because everyone can hear me. Eventually another one of the group behind the check-in desk area, breaks free and sits down behind a desk and calls for patient number 3. Geezus, by this time almost an hour has gone. I’m starting to lose it, big time, now. Deysi is engrossed in her electronic book and oblivious to time, everyone else around me appears quite content to sit and wait. I just want to go home. Please let this torture finish.

One and a half hours in, we are about to number 5, and I want to kill myself. Meanwhile the “gang of 6” are still steadfastly avoiding, sitting behind the desks together to ease the congestion already building in the ever filling waiting room. By now I’m spitting, frothing mad and see no end in sight.

Then I remember something Deysi had told me about a friend of hers. She worked at the hospital but had to leave to seek another job before it drove her nuts. Apparently her task with the patients assigned to her, took a total of 6 minutes, front to stop. She was told that she could only see one patient every twenty minutes, again this apparently from the union. If she did more, she was subject to reprimand. She found that the inactivity was affecting her sanity and she had to go look for another situation where she could work as quickly as she wanted.

I feel like crying, now there are no seats left and the new arrivals have to find places to stand and wait. This does not seem to speed up the check in process. AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH, “why me?” is all I can think. It finally ends and after three hours I’m free again, promising never to return under my own power, ever again. Deysi who has just got in some quality reading time in, is completely unsympathetic and rationalizes it by saying “well that’s just the way it is, you have to deal with it”! Geezus, where’s my rope. Well it’s all out and I am sated.