I go to a HOP clinic, HOP meaning "hosp. out patient"
It specializes in HIV and is the main,HIV clinic in this city.
I hate going there, fist they want you to come 1 /2hour to an hour before your app.I would not mind that if I had my app. on time.You have to have a new blue card every visit ,this can sometimes take an hour or more.
While in the waiting room We get to watch Jerry Springer,or Soaps.
After seeing the doc,YOU NEVER SEE AN ACTUAL DOCTOR, I see a nurse practitioiner,You wait another hour or two for them to check you out.
Whenever you go out to the desk, to see why it is taking so long, the office people who work there are sitting around gossiping and griping about this patient or that doc.
I try to bring a book to read and this helps, sometimes I get over it and just leave after waiting 2-3 hours,and call them when I get home and reschedule.
I am griping about all of this because they want me to come up there 3 times a week for treating HEP>C :-/
Now they are saying that if you miss your app. you can lose your status as a patient and will have to go back on a waiting list to get back in.I have avoided this from happening by lying to them if they ask why I missed an apt. I tell them I never got the appointment and blame them for not mailing them out.Which a lot of times they don't mail them.
If you call the clinic to get your refills they want you to call 5 days in advance,well when you call you get an answering machine and it takes them 3 days to call you back,IF they call you back.
I have been going to this clinic for over 19 years now and it keeps getting worse.
I THOUGHT these people were there to help us but sometimes it does not seem so.
I have often wondered why some lawyer has not filed suit to make them do their dam jobs, and treat each patient with the same respect.
Sometimes When I am up there the women who work up there are like"well allright miss thing", "you go girl"
as if to warrant a response, IT is like saying "act gay for me now"
Well they get kinda offended if you dont snap your fingers our wiggle yo hips or do something, as such so they can laugh.
well I am there to see the doctor, and not to socialize, Also I do not always feel well, much less do I feel like going through a bunch of phony kissing up, :-*SWEETIE DAHLING, just to get them to do what is supposed to be ther jobs, which is check me in, and out.
I also have found that I cannot listen to all of these people in the waiting room complaining about their meds or the clinic, because it feeds my own anxiety that I allready have about the clinic.
any way I just needed a place to bitch about all of that and, whew I feel btter allready, now if I can just let it go and get on with my day.
Thanks for letting me share.
HIV ANONYMOUS
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