I moved back here in Nov 2008 and had a really hard time getting a doctor to take me on as a new patient. They all read my notes, told me they were very well written and then said they weren’t taking on any new patients. I have a Medical Card as I am not working since returning here.

I am suposed to have a mammogram every year but my last one was in Feb 2008 in Oxford. I had an appointment in Ardkeen last Dec 30th 2009, but a week before the appointment I knew I wouldn’t be abe to keep it and rang to let them know. Someone asnwered the phone and said “they’ve all buggered off early for the Xmas break, but I’ll leave a note on the desk”. I rang back on the morning I was due to be seen and after several attempts to get through, someone picked up the phone literally 5 mins before I was due to be seen. I was really frustrated by then as the whole thing seemed to be very unprofessional. When I explained that I wasn’t going to be there, I was told “Not a bother, we’ll make a new appointment”. Which was odd as I thought someone else could have benefited from my not being there, but that didn’t cross their minds.

It is now May. I’ve tried ringing them loads of times over the last 5 months and mainly the phone rings out. Once I was able to leave a message and said I was trying for months to get through to someone. They called back the next day and seemed more concerned that their voicemail wasn’t working than any waiting I might be doing. It seems they misunderstood when I said I’d been trying for months to get seen. They said they had to read my file before making an appointment to see me, but I wasn’t being forgotten about. So shouldn’t they have read my file before they were supposed to see me in December?

I had to go to my doctor last week with chest pains and told him about all this. He rang them twice and got through on the second time and they said they’d try to fit me in in the next few weeks. He then examined me and said my chest pains could be a viral infection, but because of my history, the cartilage between my ribs could be cancerous and “to ask them when I saw them in a few weeks, they were used to that kind of question”.

I am now terrified, still don’t know what is going on, and in pain all the time still. My doctor gave me strong painkillers, but only because I insisted, but they are now all gone and I am on over-the-counter ones which don’t really help.