My run-in with the GP receptionist

‘We don’t have an appointment for you!’ yelled the woman sitting behind the reception hatch.

My 87-year-old father stared back at her. He had made this appointment at his local GP surgery in the Midlands and I had flown from Ireland to be with him and my mother when they attended it.

We had the right day and time and he had the confirmation text to prove it. But the receptionist couldn’t find it on her system. ‘You need to move!’ she shouted at my father.

‘I’ve come a long way…’ I tried, to which she shouted back ‘Who are you!’ and didn’t wait for the answer. It wasn’t a question.

Then the receptionist looked beyond my father and fixed a very warm smile on the woman behind him in the queue: ‘Can I help you?’ She peered around us, making a face at the lady behind as if to say: ‘Can you believe what we have to put up with?’

Looking back at my father, she shouted again in a loud patronising voice: ‘Can you move out of the way!’ Turning to the woman, laughing: ‘I’m sorry about this. Can I help you?’

‘No,’ said the woman, looking appalled. ‘This man is first.’ And she nodded to my father looking confused in his Mackintosh.

The receptionist insisted ‘He doesn’t have an appointment…’ and to my father shouted: ‘You don’t have an appointment so you’ll have to go!’ She shook her head. She had one of those ‘You can’t touch me’ public-sector attitudes, along with an air of ‘If you persist I’ll cry harassment’.

My father shuffled away to a bench in the waiting area while I tried to work out what to do. My mother, who has dementia, was already seated and getting confused. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked me. ‘Has your father made a mistake?’ ‘No Mum, he hasn’t made a mistake.