aibu to think that if your a pensioner then turning up to the early blood clinic is selfish

[meddie]

Unless your there for a fasting blood sugar or need a very early morning sample, why was the blood clinic rammed with pensioners at 7:30am who had been there from 7 (to get an early ticket). Thus making people late for work, because when they arrived at 7:30 for the 7:30 clinic there is already 20+ pensioners waiting with their tickets causing waiting times to be over an hour fromthe off.

Is it unreasonable to expect an early morning clinic put on for those who cant go during work hours, to be kept for those who need to get to work

They have as much right as anyone else to turn up when they choose. YABU.

We had a similar set up here. Their opening hours were something like 9-4 3 days a week, then 2 days a week they open at 7:30, intended for people who can't make it during working hours.

I had to take DD one morning before school, got there at 7:15 to find a long queue of elderly people before us.

They've now swapped early for late and open until 7:00pm 2 days a week

YABU. Pensioners have lives too, that's massively ageist.

I'm amazed that your surgery understands the concept of working and puts on a special session. My surgery completely fails to comprehend that you may have to arrange time off work before booking you in for routine reviews.

My mum's a pensioner. She gets to my house by 8am so that she can mind my youngest DC while I work. She's got as much right to that appointment as anyone else, frankly.

Although I can understand your frustration; the fact is that many pensioners have to attend early appointments for lots of reasons not least fasting blood tests and warfarin.

YABU
They can go when they like. And without justifying it to you either. Who made you blood test monitor?

Why does the OP think they were 'pensioners'?

They can go when they want. You want an early morning slot? Get up earlier.

I imagine a lot of them just like to get it over and done with asap because they want to be able to plan the rest of their day or hate blood tests and don't want it hanging over them. Also, I'd imagine a large number of them are fasting. It's a common requirement.

But I do understand your frustration.

YABU Most of those pensioners would have been rushing back to look after their grandchildren so that the parents could go out to work.

Also, my elderly dad would grab an early slot if it meant a reduced waiting time for him.

He dislikes waiting in public waiting rooms because he has massive bowel and health problems and pain.

Well, my pensioner father might well go that early to get the test done before heading off for other medical appointments. Like many elderly people with a serious health issue, his life is a merry-go-round of different appointments at different places. My mother might go that early because she has to drive my father to said appointments later.

Honestly, there are so many reasons why 'pensioners' (don't assume they don't work or volunteer or have caring responsibilities, there's no upper age limit on working) might need to be there early that it's a pointless gripe.

The real point is that the surgery needs to increase capacity because this particular clinic is in demand.

I sympathise. Its hard when you're working all the time to get anything done - and when you manage to do stuff out of hours - its clogged up with people who could do it at any time of the day.

Such is life though!

if you need to travel on hospital transport, you don't get any say over when you are collected and brought to the hospital. might be 11am, might be 7am.

YABVU. If you were a patient at my local GPs surgery (where I used to work), and booked an appointment for the "Commuter Surgeries"- which operate between 7am and 8.30am twice a week - you would more than likely also found yourself waiting behind pensioners. The reason for this being that when the commuter surgeries were first put in (following regular abuse because patients could not get an appointment during the precious 5.30-6.30pm slot simply because there was more demand than time) they were so poorly attended - literally one or two 'commuters' per surgery, that the decision was made to open the appointments up to anyone who wanted to book them. With GP appointments being so hard to get at the best of time this made perfect sense.

I know this is a different scenario because it is a blood test, not a GP appointment but the point is still the same. You may well find that if it were not for the pensioners attending the clinic, the service may well be withdrawn altogether (at that time of day) due to lack of use.

Also, as a previous poster has already mentioned, there are various medical reasons why a person of any age may need an early morning blood sample taken. Should we make anyone over 65 wait until 10am for their breakfast, because all the worthy people in the world have gone to school now & won't be inconvenienced?

I know you know YABU, but this is a very common argument with many people - hence me feeling the need to explain in a lengthy reply .

It's disgusting isn't it?

All those pensioners doing exactly what you should have done, but obviously couldn't be bothered to get your arse out from under the covers to do.

Never mind eh, lesson learned.

Oh, and what pp have said. Ageism is discrimination. Replace your "pensioners" with "black people" or "the disabled" and see how it reads.

Oh, get over yourself.

Fasting? Rushing back for DGCs or perhaps acting as carer for another family member? They're not out to annoy you on purpose.

Gosh, their bus passes wouldn't have even kicked in yet
Yab (massively) unreasonable

I went for a blood test at 10am once (on my day off, and yes it was a fasting test so I had starved for 12 hours) - deliberately to avoid the early morning Diabetes blood check patients .
There were all 7 units in use.
I waited 55 minutes.
But alot of the hold ups were patients coming down from the wards (they didn't wait)

If you need blood tests done, you just need to work them into your day.
Like Flu Jabs. I have to have one (NHS staff) but I either go at lunchtime or on my day off.

The op has started a goady thread and then abandoned it. Now there's a surprise!

C&pd from the mn talk guidelines.

We're all for freedom of speech. That said, we'll remove posts we consider to contain personal attacks, to break the law and/or to be obscene, racist, sexist, disablist, ageist or homophobic, once they are brought to our attention.

Am pondering whether to report your OP meddie.

Here's the thing, if instead of putting people into boxes such as pensioners, and then feeling justified at calling them selfish because they are inconveniencing you, how about just think of them as people.
A group of people got there before you in the queue to have a blood test. Do you now feel justified to start a thread in AIBU about them?

I'm in two minds about this, I understand you're frustration and have felt it myself at times. However they have every right to attend when they choose.

I remember once I waited ages for a late appointment at the Dr's and finally landed the second to last one after weeks of waiting (something kind of non urgent but that had implications and needed dealing with). As I'm about to walk out of the Dr's office who walks into the next/last appointment but XH's sister (for a very none urgent matter it turned out) who has no children, can walk to the surgery and attend any time she likes because she doesn't work. Again, I agree she could attend whatever appointment time she wanted and may have had a reason why she needed that time but it grated on me that I'd potentially had to wait weeks for an appointment because of people who may have had a lot more freedom to choose their times.

YANBU

Certain surgeries are designed to help people who work fulltime, as it is much harder for them to get to appointments without real inconvenience. I think these surgeries should be kept for people who work fulltime, and other people should take daytime appointments.

I've been in both positions, and it would have really relieved my stress if medical appointments could have been made conveniently around work. Now that I'm not working fulltime, I take midday, early afternoon appointments.

If the pensioners have to rush off to work afterwards, then fair enough- yes, I know pensioners work; if they don't have a job, which comes with strict and severe demands on their time, they should be considerate towards those who work fulltime and leave those appointments free.