"No help or sympathy"

My son had an appointment at the Walk-in Centre at 8: 30 this morning – we arrived at 8: 25 when there was a long queue and just one person on the reception desk. She was dealing with a person who was taking up much of her time and the queue was getting longer. I could see people sitting at the back have a chat but no-one seemed concerned enough to give the receptionist any help.

At 8: 40 one of the people from the back came forward to the desk and asked for the next person in the queue – my son and I went forward. This woman looked at the appointment card and said we were late and would not now be seen. I explained our apt was at 8: 30 – she stated it was at 8: 15. She went on to say that patients are given 15 minutes leeway and as it was now 8: 40 we were too late to be seen. She would have seen there was a queue forming and that we had been there for some time. Even if our appointment had been at 8: 15 we would have been 10 minutes late if we had been seen promptly, when I pointed this out her attitude stunk. It was appalling. She made no attempt to check our appointment time or acknowledge there could have been some fault on their part due to not enough people on reception.

I asked how my son’s dressing could be changed – she advised us to join the queue for the general walk-in centre traffic – a wait which could take around two hours. The reason we had early morning appointments was so that my son could get to college on time after his dressing had been changed. The alternative offered was to go to the hospital to have it changed.

She did not offer to make another appointment for my son – no help or sympathy given.