I like to think that in many ways I am on the edge, if not in the centre, of change. For example, when people complain about smart shopping and self service tills in supermarkets, like the vast majority of shoppers, I embraced them long ago and wouldn’t dream of using the cashiers unless I really had to. Similarly, when I heard about the government’s proposal to close ticket offices at railway stations, like the vast majority of passengers I never use them anyway. I know that this is all about saving money and profiteering by the various companies involved, but I also find they make my life easier and anything that can do that is surely A Good Thing. But then something which adversely affected me brought me back to Earth with a jolt. My local health centre.
I have no trouble at the supermarkets with the new technology and on the rare occasion I can afford to use the train, the last thing I want to do is waste time queuing in a ticket office. But the technology in use at my local health centre is well beyond my level of understanding and part of me, quite a lot of me, actually, yearns for the day when one could actually see a GP.
In a manner of speaking, I am in the system at the moment, trying to arrange blood tests as part of the ‘investigations’ which apparently need to take place for an as yet unknown medical condition. A mere three and a half weeks after my latest blood tests, a GP – I have mentioned before I cannot regard him as ‘my’ GP since I have never met him – phoned me to explain in impenetrable medical terms what the next steps were. I won’t bore you with the details, but in trying to navigate the website and app, it appears these next steps have been taken without bothering to tell me, including upcoming appointments. Luckily, my social life isn’t the most hectic, so with one or two tweaks they should work, but why didn’t they tell me?
I am not the quickest on the uptake, either, so I don’t really understand what happens next and – surprise! surprise! – it was all but impossible to navigate the clunky website. I don’t really like calling the receptionist because – and this is probably my hypersensitivity at work – they make me feel like I am interrupting them while they carry out far more important work and that my call is nothing more than an inconvenience. So I’ve done the obvious thing and sent all my queries via a generic part of the website and let them sort it out, if I don’t die first, that is, and tell me – advance warning of an upcoming swear word – what the fuck I am supposed to do.
Which brings me back to modern problems. My inability to navigate the system at our local health centre is probably down to a combination of a form of tech phobia, anxiety, ADHD, stupidity and old age so perhaps I should be a bit kinder and gentler to those who can’t get their heads round doing self-scan shopping and struggling to buy an on line train ticket?
