The world's most "FISH" medical care!

Arghhhhhh.... This would never have happened if this was in Singapore.

Today, Howard woke up with a fever, cough, sore throat, running nose and pain in the ear. I told him to take a rest at home as he seemed to be in a very bad state. At 10.30am, we called the doctor for a medical appointment but was told to hold for >10mins over the phone. I told him to forget it and lets just drive down to the medical center that is about 10mins away (I had bad experiences in the phone before and they made be hold for over 20mins previously before cutting off my line).

At the clinic, we told the counter girl about the illness and she said that we should have called couple of days earlier. (DUh... if I could predict or fortell that he will be sick, I will be earning big bucks now!) She claimed that there were no doctors available today and told us to get an appointment for a later date. This got me boiling inside. She then directed me to the customer service center. However, we were not able to find the customer service center and had asked couple of people along the way. They just referred us everyone where and we were just ding donging for the next hour. Finally we were directed to a phone where appointments were to be made. Too bad, I don’t have a digital cam with me at that time to take a photograph of the so called "customer service center" It was just a phone with a plate that says... "call for appointment" and this was the same exact extension that I would have called back home.

We were quite pissed again as we were put on hold. By then, howard was feeling very bad and weak. On one had, we needed a medical certificate to prove that he was unwell for work and on the other, the bloody medical center had no doctor available. Finally after 2hours, with the help of a health counselor, we were told that she could get a nurse to attend to us. A NURSE! Well, better then none we thought. Just give us some medications. We got to wait for yet another 3 hours before our turn came. We were told that we were treated as walk-ins and as such we needed to wait. 3 hours just to see a nurse! I look around the medical center. Everyone looked perfectly healthy other then howard coughing away. What sort of stupid rule to book your appointment way in advance (at least 7 days)? Is this what we called planned MC since one knows that he will be sick in advance?

Finally out turn arrived. Should I say yippie yuppie.... or should I thanked them for being so generous to allow be a slot to see the nurse. After the nurse looked at howard, took his temperature and uttered " you got a fever" .. Duhh... I know that.... she handed him a MC for a day (bearing in mind that it was already about 3.30pm. We have spent the whole day there... and could have just rested at home) and said that she was not authorized to prescribe any medication. If we want any, we got to purchase over the counter........

Can anyone believe that....Not that I use this word very often, I must say this is the most F*** health care I ever seen.

and ... we were there from 10.30 to 3.30 ... WE HAVE NOT HAD OUR LUNCH YET... and poor howard... sick and hungry

5 hours of waiting .... No doctors...... A nurse with no power to prescribe medication......