Monday, December 08, 2008

The SCCA does it again.

It's Monday evening and I'm going to recap this last two days of foul ups at the SCCA. I have a "Summary Meeting" tomorrow and I'm going to make sure it's not a one sided conversation. They'll get my summary too.

On Friday at 11am, I was given my FOURTH schedule for the day. It covered the coming week (now this week).

On Sunday at 5:01 pm, I got a phone call from the facility checking to see why I'd missed my Sunday blood draw. There is no blood draw on my schedule. Further, what's the good of checking on a patient after the lab is closed? The caller indicated that I should wait until my scheduled 8:30 am Monday blood draw appointment and that my numbers were such that I would be getting a platelet transfusion sometime Monday after a "type and cross".

So I arrived for my blood test this morning and there was no "type and cross" ordered. Why had I been asked to block off enough time for a transfusion? I spent the next 2 hours there waiting for the most recent results so they could say, "Nope, no transfusion. Have a nice day."

So I went home and returned for my 3:30 "Summary conference". I arrived at 3 and was escorted to a conference room. I thought they were running ahead of schedule and was happy for the surprise. A man entered and gave me a synopsis of my blood results. We covered everything and I went home.

At 4:00, I got a call from scheduling asking "Where are you?". It seems the meeting I was granted WAS NOT the meeting I was there for, and further, that said meeting wasn't on my schedule at all.

They asked if I could return to the facility. I told them I could and that I could be there at about 4:20.

While I was on my way, they called back and told me to come in tomorrow. Three freaking trips to the SCCA in one day because they can't print a schedule.

I very nearly went POSTAL.

This, on top of "losing my poop" and asking for extra samples, doing emergency scheduling of blood tests on Sunday afternoons (within the last month), I really wonder what the heck has happened to the SCCA in the last 6 weeks or so.

I had a candid conversation with a person involved in advocacy. I was told that recently many patients have complained about disorganization, crowding, and scheduling issues, YET THERE IS NO INCREASE IN PATIENT INTAKE. In other words, the place is coming unglued, but it's not because they have more patients.

Sad. They do wonderful work when they work wonderfully.

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