PATIENT PATIENCE..

I think it was in the uproarious movie, "Airplane" that the following conversation took place between a passenger - the late Leslie Nielsen`s Dr. Rumack - and one of the stewardesses, Elaine Dickinson, played by Julie Hagerty:-

Rumack : You`d better tell the Captain we`ve got to land as soon as possible.   This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.

Elaine Dickinson : A hospital?  What is it?

Rumack : It`s a big building with patients, but that`s not important right now.

Well, in the last week or two I`ve paid a couple of visits to Pembury Hospital - a whizzo, sooper-dooper, hi-tech, state-of-the-art big building with patients.   Nothing too serious for me - just an outpatients thingy - but it gave me a mercifully rare insight into how these places operate.

Car parking was easy enough - automated, of course - and you report to reception and are advised to take a seat and when your name comes up on the screen, you`re to proceed to the outpatients reception.  Did that and reported to outpatients reception where I was advised to take a seat and when your name comes up on the screen, go to consulting room 09 where a very nice doctor will see to you.

So I kept watching the screen and felt almost transported to the set of `Airplane,` expecting at any moment to see `Baggage in hall` come up on the screen.   But all went well, the doctor was very nice and gave me a prescription for the hospital pharmacy.   Handed it in and was advised to take a seat and when your number comes up on the screen your prescription will be ready.  

It could have said `Delayed,` but I waited patiently and was eventually released back to the car park where a machine would only accept payment by debit card - another technological challenge to overcome - along with the realisation that all this waiting around had been a cunning plan to trip the time over into the next phase of parking charges.   But the whole experience proved the benefit of patience.   As the logo above says, "Keep calm and have patience."   Especially if you`re a patient.  In a big building.