ITSNOTPOSSIBLE.NL

The Invisible Customer. Episode 2: Invisible Customer vs The Blind Optician

BASED ON A TRUE STORY (unfortunately)!

CAST:
Itsnotpossible.nl reader Paul....................The invisible Customer
Pearle Optician............................................The Blind Optician
Pearle Optician staff....................................The Other Blind Dude

LOCATION: Pearle Opticians

THE PLOT

I arrive for my contact lens appointment just as one of the staff is unlocking
the door. In perfect Dutch I say that I have an appointment at 10 o'clock - in
other words right now - and he says to go and take a seat upstairs.

I wait as staff go up and down the stairs past me, some say good
morning. I smile pleasantly back and return the greeting.

The contact lens guy is nowhere to be seen. I wait. I read. I read the same three weeks old Elsevier
article again (or was it HP De Tijd, I was so bored I can't recall).
Now it is 10:15. Just as I am about to go downstairs to ask one
of the other staff what the problem is, the contact lens guy comes down from
the next floor up.
He ignores me even though I am sitting outside his room,
even though there is no-one else in sight and the fact that I look up at him,
smiling a greeting. He continues to ignore me.

At 10:20, just as I am about to stand up and approach the contact lens guy, who
by this time has a phone to his ear, he asks me if I am here for contact
lenses. Stopping myself from giving a sarcastic reply I tell him about the
appointment.

"It's not possible!"

Does Dutch Hellcare care more about the Dutch?

Does Dutch Healthcare discriminate? Do you feel discriminated?

A reader sent me her personal Dutch hellcare story.

I will describe exactly what happened to me on Saturday May 28th because I consider it my duty to other foreigners that are obliged to stay here and have the bad luck to be ill or needing health care.

That day I fell down the stairs. I stood up and started to walk, but after 5 meters my right foot was swollen and the swollen part looked like a ball of 10 centimeters in diameter. I went to the hospital by taxi, went inside, told the woman (assistant?) what my problem was and I sat down and waited.

I saw a Dutch woman coming in, with the same problem I had and it was the first strange thing because she was told to go inside immediately, and one hour later she had a plaster on her foot and was going back home....

Where does my healthcare money go?

Two years ago I started having problems with my right ear: I couldn't hear as clearly as with my other ear. Nothing major but a bit annoying. I had to go through three morons "doctors" who gave me three different advices. The first one told me to use some ear drops he prescribed for me. I tried them for six months without any result. The second moron doctor pumped some water in my ears and said "now you should feel better". Two months later, no results. The third moron doctor was the funniest one...

"My ankles hurt when I sit down" - "Don't sit down then".

Expat reader Iris sends us this short but sweet healthcare hellcare story:

I went to my huisarts because my ankles were painful when I sat cross-legged. His solution? Don't sit like that then.

Of course these things happen in any other country. Mainly in joke books though.