"Waiting for a long time"

I waited for an hour in physiotherapy outpatients and was not seen by anyone. The receptionist was on holiday apparently, so no one spoke to me, no one acknowledged my existence. Another patient arrived 20 minutes past my appointment time and the physiotherapist who was to see me took that patient in 2 minutes later. I waited another 40 minutes then had to go, it's obvious there has been a mistake in the administration of appointments. It happens no biggy, however...

The month before as I waited in the same place I heard staff discussing staff cuts and schedule changes, they were trepidatious about the implications of the changes to the quality of service the hospital could provide. I had a sense that their concerns fell on deaf ears up the administrative chain.

Staff holidays are a foreseeable contingency so administrators have failed to administrate well. The culture of cutting costs has a diminishing marginal return and in this case the costs have exceeded the benefits. If my experience were to be repeated across the system the costs would be enormous on a personal level to clients and to the wider economy in terms of lost productivity. I  just want administrators and politicians to think more carefully about the never-ending process of ripping the guts out of our public health system.