Trying to get care – an everyday struggle against bureaucracy

It has slowly but surely crept up the list of popular topics of conversation in my circle of acquaintances. Now it's definitely top three. And no, I'm not talking about something as easy as "AI will bury us all" or "the smooth government formation". I'm talking about the problem complex "trying to get care, preferably before you die".

A barrage of sitcom anecdotes is delivered with points such as "and when I finally arrived the doctor had Lyme disease", "the next free time was... after Christmas!" and "seven different ones, in one year - and the last one called me Britta!"

My own entry is about how I failed to schedule my annual skin check. Nowadays, it is not possible to settle a return visit during the visit itself – that would be too practical, wouldn't it?

Instead, I put a reminder in my calendar in the middle of the period when booking is allowed - but when it rings, I discover that this matter cannot be done via 1177, or via the clinic's website, or by sending a message. However, there is a telephone time! Which is over.

What pushes me over the edge is that the clinic's response begins with "Case closed".

I make another reminder and the next day, after about ten choices on the phone, I am told that I will be called in about an hour. So I cancel my plans and sit down and stare at the phone like I was a teenager in love. But nothing happens, this time either.

Well, by the way, after an hour and a half I get a text: "We've been trying to reach you." I want so badly to answer "And you have succeeded in that! Hello! The situation?", but there is another message: that you must not answer. So in the end I break the instructions and send a message. That's when I learn that the booking rules have changed - again!

I should have contacted you a month earlier. Now I have, quite magically, turned into a new patient. This despite the fact that I have visited the clinic about fifteen times in the last ten years. So often I don't even see my best friends - and at least they still say hello.

None of this upsets me. What pushes me over the edge is that the clinic's response begins with "Case closed".

Sorry, but that's not for you to decide, is it? It's me who's the case, isn't it?

By the way, we have the same wording in our HR and IT systems at work. Suddenly, regardless of whether the person with the problem thinks it is solved or not, the "case can be closed". I see it as the digital administration equivalent, and just as mature and charming, of covering your ears when someone is talking. It's actually sick – you wish the systems could see a doctor, but, well, you know…