more bad service at the local doctor

Re: Incredibly dismissive, awful service. Again. Again.

Dear Lægehuset,

Well, well, well, here we are again. It seems that the only way to have one’s illness be taken seriously by you is to write a letter in my native language and demand to be taken seriously.

I visited your offices on Friday, March 16 after not being able to shake off a cough for month. I didn’t have a fever and wasn’t seeking antibiotics. For good measure, a blood test was taken to check my infection levels. They weren’t abnormal. I was led into Kirsten Vaarst’s office, thinking that I was seeing her. Later, I learned it wasn’t her. The doctor I did see, to her credit, did take me seriously, listened to me and my lungs and also read through my previous record – noticing that I’d had such a persistent cough previously and looked at the medicine I was prescribed then to get rid of it. We agreed that she would prescribe an inhaler that wasn’t quite as powerful as the one I’d had previously in 2012 and that I should let her know in a week if it worked or not.

After using it religiously for a week and having my cough get worse, rather than better, I called during the 8-9 a.m. hours today. I explained that the cough was worse, but unfortunately, I wasn’t in town, so I couldn’t come by. I referred to our conversation and reminded the doctor on the other end – it was at this moment that I learned it wasn’t Kirsten Vaarst I saw on March 16, but unfortunately, it was her I was talking to. She was flippant and arrogant and said that I just had to wait it out since half of Denmark was coughing. She seemed to think it was perfectly fine that I continue with a worsening cough all weekend and that I could just call again when I was in Give. At this point, I switched to English and gave her an earful, saying I couldn’t believe we were here again. And now, I’m here again.

The doctor I spoke to (whose name, I naturally do not know, since nothing has changed over the 8 years I’ve been in Give and the doctors do not introduce themselves when they call you in), told me to call if the inhaler didn’t work and she would call in a prescription for the one I had previously, which had worked. But, instead, I got arrogant, flippant behaviour as if I were a medicine-seeking wuss, instead of a person who knows my own body and symptoms and deserves to be treated respectfully.

You have a serious problem with your relationship to your patients and I am fed up with having to write you a nasty letter in English every time (this is the third one I’ve had to write) to be taken seriously when I have proven again and again that I am not someone who comes to the doctor lightly or when there’s nothing wrong. I should not be punished again and again by your arrogance and lack of care just because others may do that.

I’d like an apology from the arrogant Dr. Vaarst and a prescription for the other inhaler that the doctor I saw said she would send in if the one she gave me on March 16 didn’t work.