"Box Hill Outpatients Clinic appointments"

I have been a patient at Box Hill Hospital during 2015 for a number of related surgeries after being diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and finished the year off with an Open Radical Prostatectomy late in the year, (there are also a lot of things I was not happy about then and I should have written about them). However this complaint is about the inadequate phone answering system and appointment booking system now in use. Clearly the manager that had this new system implemented has never had to use their own system. If they did they would discover some startling facts - the system clearly does not work, let alone efficiently. Perhaps if some of these managers were replaced with Admin Staff the customer service would improve greatly.

For example: I attended the Public Urology Clinic for an appointment. Some considerable time after the consultation I was asked to make another appointment for 3 months time to get the results of my second PSA test. I was told I could not book that far ahead and would receive by mail on my next appointment date. Then received a letter in the mail for an appointment. The next day I tried to ring and change my appointment. After listening to all that corporate information about how good Eastern Health is and the message about a good way to change appointments by email, provided I give 48 hrs notice, I did exactly that. I requested the date be changed to make it 3 months as requested by the doctor. This was closer to 85 days notice and should be enough I thought. I then received a text message reminder for my original appointment just prior to that date. So on the next day I tried to ring again. I gave up after 5 mins waiting after once again listening to the corporate information and then hearing I was number 15 on the list - I gave up. That afternoon I rang again and heard that same message about emails and thought, "Hey, I know they don't work, I tried already". After waiting 69 minutes and hearing all those messages repeatedly and the count down on the waiting list I finally got to speak to a lovely friendly sounding person Dianne who then informed me that the month I requested was already booked out and I would have to wait until the next month. I grumbled a bit and we brought the appointment forward to the end of the month that I was hoping for, even though she was told she is not to overbook the appointments. It's not a concert I am booking for, I have had Prostate Cancer, with a series of complications so it should be understandable that I am still a bit anxious about how I am progressing with the recovery process. To have to keep listening to all the corporate information that is presented on the phone continuously each time whilst being messed around and I find it insulting. What happened to real patient care, or is it called customer service these days? Is it all about the bottom line for the Eastern Health budget rather than Health Care for the community?