I upset a lady at GP surgery today

[TheQuirkyMaker]

A queue of five people in front at surgery. Waiting room pretty full. Only one receptionist available. An elderly lady at the front was telling the receptionist that she had just picked up meds at the chemist, and they had been changed from her regular ones to different ones. There was back and forth discussion, and every few minutes the lady would say, "but nobody told me they would be changed". I asked the lady in front of me how long this had been going on and she said "about 10 minutes". After a full further 15 minutes I said "Look, this is getting us no where, none of us will get to see a doctor if we can't sign in". I got a bit of condemnation along the lines of "she was entitled to her time", but I said, "this is reception, not a consultation. Just repeating that she wasn't told her medication would be changed is getting us no where. This could go on forever".
People got a bit sniffy with me, and I got a few stares, but I was right, wasn't I?
I get we should be tolerant of older people, but there has to be a bit of give and take.

Well, I wouldn't want to live with someone who misunderstands viewpoints and is argumentative about it because they don't understand other people's views. My father was like that, like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills and fighting imaginary enemies all his life.
But each to their own, makes a change from watching Goggle box, I suppose.

@TheQuirkyMaker saying you wouldn’t want to live with someone and saying you hope someone lives alone are two very different things.

I hope people treat you with more kindness and compassion than you treat others.

So you've just reverted to abuse and what you've said bears no relevance to my posts.
You haven't explained your post at all.

I so agree with you. Loneliness is a problem, for all ages, and both men and women. It affects women more than men, because they so often become widows.
When my father was admitted to a nursing home in the last years of his life with dementia, 10 years ago, my mother wept and wept and needed a taxi to get home.
I help to provide a taxi service for appointments as we live in a rural area.

I'm driven to quoting myself because you seem unable to understand the point I'm making.
You replied by quoting my last paragraph and saying:

Oh I see, you have comprehension problems. Maybe you were the lady holding us all up while you repeated a statement to someone who repeatedly told you she couldn't deal with it, hoping you could browbeat them into submission. I hope you live alone.

Obviously I'm not the lady you're complaining about.
I said I wouldn't want to be waiting behind you in similar circumstances because you have muddled up the time it took, then said the problem was that three receptionists were present but didn't help. You seem to have forgotten those details.

I'm obviously not the one with comprehension problems.
I don't live alone but I'm very glad I don't live with someone with concrete thinking.

Ours did have one. Post-Covid, it's never been in use, I don't think I've seen more than a handful of people in the waiting room at any time, Then again, getting to see a doctor is a rarity.

.

Don’t worry, @LaMarschallin-I’ll live with you. We can devote our lives to promoting consistency and credibility. I like cats and red wine. I hope we’re compatible!

Well, quite - but then where would the drama have been? And the opportunity to give an ageist dig? And judging by the tenor of the OP’s posts, just to be, well, a little bit unpleasant given the opportunity?

Sounds good 😃
I'm sure DH would be glad of the respite from being chatted at.

My daughter got stuck in a queue to check in at our GP's as the machine was broken. She was waiting for so long that she missed the appointment time and the receptionist told her she had to make another appointment! So I think you were definitely right to intervene.

What would you suggest she do? If her medications have genuinely been changed, important meds deprescribed or missing without her knowledge do you expect her to just suck it up rather than inconvenience you?

She can't exactly march in and speak to a Gp, she has to go through reception. If she has something like Parkinsons then the brand is important and may cause significant flare ups if changed.

Your solution was for her to suck it up rather than the Gp just open a second window! Your whole argument is based on the fact your assuming this woman was being stupid and won't suffer any affects from her possible medication change

This is a blatant lie. There's no way she was there 25 minutes 😂😂😂

The OP has already said she was mistaken about the time.

Yes 10 minutes instead of 15 making a total of 20 minutes not 25 as the old woman had already been going in a waste of time loop for 10 mins.

Couldn't be arsed reading through 17 pages of drivel

But the receptionist in your case in person in mine on the phone is the gatekeeper. I had to go through the problem over and over again and the possible outcomes (her causing a Potentially fatal accident) because she kept saying it's Friday afternoon so can't do anything till Monday. Do you think i should have just said ok? How about if it was one of your loved ones driving past when she caused a pile up?

You have no idea of the implications of the med changes and if it was a planned change or a mistake.

Being rude to someone who is clearly worried about something important to them is unnecessary. You could have politely said sorry to interrupt but could I just check in so I don't miss my appointment.

Didn't she change 25 minutes to ten minutes?

@TheQuirkyMakersaid “To be fair, maybe it was 10 minutes total”

And stop using “old” as an identifier.

I thought it was it had already been going on for ten minutes when op joined the queue and she said something at the 25 minute mark.
I was counting this as 25 minutes in total including the 10 she wasn’t there for.
When she downgraded it to 10 minutes, I saw that as 10 minutes prior to her joining the queue plus the 10 minutes prior making 20 minutes.
Although to be fair I’m getting my eyes crossed as well with the number of minutes so you could be right.

What difference does it make as if she had said young woman no one would have even mentioned it.
Young, old it’s just a description.

But the lady needed to speak to a GP not a receptionist!
The fault was with the receptionist though. She should have put the lady on the sit and wait list for the GP and then worked through the queue

Especially when OP is 70 (and prone to exaggerating) 🤣

Black, disabled, fat, thin-all just descriptions.

if you throw in an irrelevant description showing us someone's in a group routinely dismissed and disrespected, you're inviting people who share that prejudice to come and pile on. It isn't always deliberate of course, but that's what happens.

You can see it in this thread - lots of people deciding the woman in question was clueless and didn't understand generic medicine, when we have no grounds to think that was even the problem. People comparing her to other older women they dislike. You'd get a more balanced view if you didn't encourage people to pool their presumptions and prejudices like this.