Today I got home and found out I had a message on our voice mail. It was my brother's cardiologist's office, calling to "remind" me that he has an appointment at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. The nursing home had made the appointment, and nobody let me know about it.
So I called the nursing home to ask them if they knew about it. It was obvious that the nurse had forgotten that she had made an appointment for him. I asked how was he going to get to the doctor's office. She asked me if he could go on his own, and I said no. I also told her there was no way I could miss work with less than 24 hours notice.
She got her boss to call me who told me that it was my fault that I didn't know about the appointment, that I must have known, otherwise, why would have I called. I told her about the message from the doctor's office and that it was their responsibility to keep me informed. At first they refused to find him an escort, saying it was the family's responsibility, but after I called the front desk and asked them to page whoever was in charge of the building (it was after hours, and the receptionist gave me a hard time), all of a sudden they found one for him.
As it is, I am going to have to rearrange my meetings at work so that I can talk to the doctor on the phone when he sees my brother.
I work for a federal bureaucracy. I think wading through the bureaucratic maze there has given me some skill sets that are very useful for this kind of thing. But I resent that I even have to get involved. And in the long run, it's the nursing home that holds the upper hand. You can't be too much of a pain, or they will take it out on my brother.
I'm going to visit him tomorrow evening. When I go, I have to remind them to get him a phone where he can hear the ring. He is hard of hearing, on top of everything else.
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