Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Surveys are helpful. Sometimes.

Today I was at the Hospital for Sick Kids with Elli.  (Don't fret, it is just followup stuff from things that have gone before.  Nothing to worry over.)  I really appreciate how much effort they put into making things work for kids there.  I was concerned that the test we were going to do would be a problem because six year olds aren't as disciplined as adults but they were very supportive and obviously had a system in place that assumed the patients would be young kids.  Makes sense, of course, but it is such a relief to see that since normal medicine often doesn't work well for children.

They were doing a survey to find out how much money people spent to be there and how hard it was for them to get to the hospital.  Evidently they are interested in trying to reduce the difficulty and cost for families who want to go to Sick Kids - an admirable goal.  I had some information for them because my trip to Sick Kids was a frustrating and unpleasant one indeed.  I don't know that they found my recommendations particularly useful though.

First off, when I have to be downtown at 9:00 for an appointment with a child it is a mess.  People on the subway are completely jammed in because of rush hour and keep trying to mash into Elli because she is so short.  All they can see is an empty space and I had to keep telling them to stop shoving other people into my kid.  So my advice is this:  Don't be downtown, and/or don't book appointments that require travel during rush hour.

I would also suggest that they make sure to only book appointments on days when transit is running.  Carrying a child halfway across downtown because the subway isn't functional and buses have lines hundreds of people long is poor and causes sick adults to become grumpy.

So yeah, get to work on that guys.  Fix transit and move your hospital next to my house or something.  Other than that, good job I guess?

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