The dilemas of needing to see a doctor at uni!

Two days ago was possibly one of the most pointless days of my life and never before have I felt so completely helpless, alone and degraded.

The dramatic opening sentence is totally necessary here everyone, just sayin’.

I felt really ill. Your standard type of ill as in *ill all over* *no medicine will help* *get me a bloody doctor or I am going to die in this bed* but I decided I’d kick the lazy bug in the bottom and go do something about it.

Then the day got a whole lot worse...

I started off by calling the university clinic, the sensible and most straight forward option as we’re all members of the clinic since enrolling at the start of the year. It took two phone calls before the receptionist finally answered then proceeded to tell me, after me rambling on about all my symptoms in the most polite and *I’M SO ILL HELP ME NOW* manner, that there was nothing they could do for me until the next week when the appointment schedule had calmed down.
She then added that for ‘on the day appointments’ you have to call at around 8AM in the morning because they all go really quickly. So, the uni doctors, as they do to everybody that calls, just told me to visit the walk-in clinic.

This brings me to my first question: why does the uni clinic not have more doctors or even nurses available to see students when there are always going to be people needing appointments? The uni should not promise medical care, upon registration, to all students at the uni (all thousands of them) if there isn't going to be appointment availability for weeks. HALF OF US COULD BE DEAD BY THEN? Dramatic but God, this annoys me.

I decided, after disappointment number 1, that I’d phone the ‘walk-in clinic’ prior to my visit to check on the waiting time. This was a wise decision as I once, in the first semester, sat in that clammy waiting room for three hours for a nurse, not even a doctor, to tell me that I should go to boots and get some more paracetamol, baring in mind I had tonsillitis. I then managed to get into a doctor after that who didn’t even hesitate to give me prescription to a weeks worth of antibiotics.

Anyway, I called up and they said the waiting time was three quarters of an hour. I could deal with that.    Of course once I got there, it did only take me twenty minutes so how this happened in such a short period of time I’ll never know, it was up to three hours! THREE HOURS. There’s no wi-fi there so it’s not like I could do some work.

I decided to scrap that and walk to Accident and Emergency. At least there I could slightly exaggerate the symptoms and get something for it. I was feeling really sh*t.

(Continuing in next blog)