"Switchboard cannot evan take messages"

My daughter had an appointment with the dietician and she is in hospital so cannot make the appointment, after two phone calls with a waiting time of 13-15 mins each one we still could not talk to anybody to cancel it.We asked the switchboard operator to pass a message on to which the reply was " we do not take messages we are not PAs or sectary we are only switchboard" Will somebody tell me what a switchboard operator is for. Do they just sit there answering calls without doing anything else ? . It is about time that everybody started to work together ,what do they get paid to do just twiddle their thumbs after all its not even that big a hospital now.