I was decidedly unhappy to find myself in the large, crowded waiting room of an Urgent Care Clinic yesterday afternoon, where I spent several frustrating and inconclusive hours awaiting treatment.   Others waiting there patiently to be seen by a medical professional had, like me, no visible sign of medical distress.  Other than the children, harshly coughing, and adults sneezing.  Obviously, like a hospital itself, not the most germ-free of environments.

Ten years ago I had noticed, on my midriff, what looked very much like a spider bite.  It was a small swelling which, over the succeeding days, became progressively larger and more swollen. And, as well, irritated.  Until it also became infected, and at that point painful to the touch. 

Considering it a minor matter, I didn't go the geographic distance to our family doctor located where we had once lived for twenty years, instead choosing to go to a neighbourhood walk-in medical clinic.  Where the doctor there heard me out, looked at the thing, tch-tched, then wiped a knife across it, drained it, bandaged it, wrote out a prescription for anti-biotic and sent me on my way.

Since then, that same kind of episode has twice re-occurred.  On the second occasion, at another walk-in clinic, the doctor did the same thing.  A week ago, from the very same area, another bump began emerging, became enlarged steadily, red and angry, then appeared to be infected. 

This time I made an appointment to see my (new) family doctor (the old one having retired).  This new doctor, a young, stylish woman whose accented patter I can barely decipher looked at the thing, confirmed it was abscessed, and said she doesn't "do" such things.  Obviously no spider bite, but something lodged subcutaneously that erupts occasionally.

She described for me the pattern of treatment that would have to be undertaken, precisely what had been done formerly at those walk-in clinics and informed me that I would have to attend the nearby urgent care clinic to get someone there to do something fairly routine which she doesn't "do".  She scribbled a referral on a prescription pad, handed it to me to show to the clinic.  Then took my blood pressure, and unsurprisingly, it was higher than normal.

Which was how I ended up at the clinic.  The good news is that the clinic is handily close, right in our neighbourhood.  The bad news (for me) was that the receptionist would not recognize the scribbled prescription note as a referral - and this after I'd waited for an hour just to get to the reception desk; a numbered, first-come protocol at that busy place.

The receptionist obligingly called my doctor's office and asked that a proper referral be faxed over to allow them to proceed because OHIP cannot be billed twice on the same day for the same person seeing two separate doctors for one single cause without a proper referral.  A wait of an hour ensued, after which the receptionist placed that call and request again.

At which point I just walked out, infection intact, when after another half-hour wait no fax had arrived.