"Belittled, made to feel like an inconvenience"

This feedback relates to what I perceive to be a highly unprofessional staff member at the radiology department who I believe does not respect patient confidentiality, patient autonomy, lacks a basic respectful customer service and in my opinion should not be at the frontline of your health service dealing with sensitive patient information.

I phoned the radiology department last week to book in a planned ultrasound that needed to be done by a certain date, they denied having received my referral but assured me that they would chase it up with the GP and phone me to book the appointment for the scan in.

After 5 business days I didn’t hear back, so I confirmed with the GP that the referral was sent, and it had been over 2 weeks ago. I phoned the radiology department again and prompted them to look again for my referral to get my scan booked in, which they eventually found. I felt the staff member was incredibly rude on the phone as if I was a complete inconvenience, kept calling me “love” and then eventually offered me one appointment time before the cut off date required to corroborate with a pathology test I’d had done the previous week.

This was a time critical test that needed to be done before a certain date in case an intervention or further testing was required. I said I would take the appointment and I recall they said if I couldn’t make (which I never indicated I couldn’t) that then it was “too bad” and told me a story about how the Radiologist was flying out and the appointment I needed was “annoying” because it’s a 45minute long appointment.

The staff member then proceeded to ask if I would be bringing a support person in, to which I said no, and they continued to tell me that I “should” bring a spouse or friend with me, and became quite pushy telling me that most people bring one incase I got “bad news”, even though I kept declining as logistically I couldn’t knowing that the appointment time I was given was outside of childcare hours and any of my possible support people would be helping me to logistically attend the appointment that I had no option but to take.

I just feel that this is so inappropriate as a staff member who doesn’t know me or my medical history but it felt like they had read something in my medical file to indicate something sinister was noted previously, after this I had to book an appointment with my doctor as I was so anxious that there was something written in my file that this staff member knew that I didn’t know yet, I’d had that would mean I was about to get some bad news at the scan! This wasn’t the case. The staff member was speaking out of school and I feel this is incredibly inappropriate and out of their scope causing unwarranted stress in an already stressful situation.

Throughout the phone call the staff member kept referring to me as “love” and I recall continued to tell me how annoying booking a 45 minute appointment was. I felt belittled, as if I was an inconvenience, anxious about why they were so pushy for me to bring a a support person with me and felt that my medical information was being accessed inappropriately for them to indicate I was going to get “bad news” at the scan - in other words, in my opinion this was not patient centred care whatsoever and I felt ostracised for trying to be proactive in following up my referral.

I felt this whole interaction was highly inappropriate and I’m sad to say this is not my first negative interaction with this same staff member , so much so that last time approximately 18 months ago, I had similar interactions with needing to attend for frequent scans - constantly being called “love”, my medical reason for needing the scans being announced loudly to the entire reception, being made to feel like an inconvenience by booking appointments and that they had done me a huge favour by booking appointments in, consistently lost referrals and what I feel is just a sheer lack of respect as a patient.

I nearly put a complaint in at that time, but didn’t as I decided to give benefit of the doubt, but knowing that they are still in this position and my experience is not an isolated one, evidently making other patients feel similar way. I dread having to call or attend radiology incase I am yet again on the receiving end of this behaviour with this particular person. It is a massive shame as there are some other staff members working there who I feel have been absolutely amazing and in my opinion should be praised for their exemplary work.