In last week’s instalment of this column, I had injured my foot and gone to the hospital to have it seen to. I had made one visit, at the end of which (after waiting many hours) I was sent home to come back on the following Friday. I had made this visit and again been sent off without seeing anybody relevant. I was then told to return the following day, which I did, only to be told to come and see the vascular surgeon in ten days’ time. I have not yet seen him. The tale continues.

Let’s draw back and take a view from my present situation. The hospital which I have been visiting is a big private hospital and is not a cheap place. One would expect that, as a member of a medical aid, one would receive prompt attention. However, a sign in the waiting room warns that you can wait up to two hours to be seen. Let’s pause to analyse what that means. It means that, to receive any medical attention, there can be a delay of two hours. I know this is obvious, because the sign says so, but let’s look at this more deeply. It means that, on occasion, it will take the hospital’s waiting room two hours before they get around to summoning you to be attended to by a doctor. In point of fact, it took longer than two hours for this hospital to see me. On two occasions, it took considerably longer. On the first occasion, it took eight hours before they decided they could not see me and on the other occasion five hours before they decided they could not see me. And this is the point: they did not see me.

They do not care how long I or others have to wait. They know that we will come back, as we have no choice because we need medical attention. So, they feel quite complacent, as they know we can’t go elsewhere. We are bound to attend the hospital where our doctors’ rooms are. So, unless you are on death’s door, they just keep telling you to come back another day.

It is clear that such a situation is not acceptable. Medical treatment is not supposed to be a matter of their choice. Everyone should receive equal treatment when it is required. One has to wonder whether paying for an expensive medical aid is worth it – when one could be treated in a similar fashion at any government hospital and possibly even be seen much sooner.

Private hospitals seem to ‘waste’ time by putting you through a sausage machine where you have to see one doctor first, before you can see one who is slightly more specialised and then another, and so on. It would be far more efficient and affordable to be directed to the correct doctor who can help you right from the beginning.

You have to wonder if this is an elaborate pyramid scheme which relies on an ever- increasing number of patients who are slowly moved up the chain. Many of us suspect that often fees are charged at the maximum rate that the medical aid schemes will pay and that some practitioners charge even more or order more elaborate tests when they know you have gap cover. All these procedures, of course, require further bookings and more time in the waiting room.

This situation is not right and should change. Hospitals inflate the importance of using specialised medical staff so that they can maximise the amount of money that they make but, in my opinion, this is not in accordance with good medical practice. In a perfect world, no one would ever get ill or need a hospital. We would all live happily ever after and die of old age peacefully in our sleep. Unfortunately, this fairy tale is not what most of us will experience and it certainly is not even close to the nightmare I have had to endure in recent weeks – a nightmare which continues and which I know will trap me in quite a few more waiting rooms in the not-too-distant future.

Roll on the artificial intelligence revolution, where I could just hold my phone up to my foot and have a super-intelligent ‘doctor’ diagnose my problem from afar and automatically send off a prescription to my pharmacist, who will have it delivered to my door.