emergency contact

May I share with you my grievances towards the inefficiencies and the inconvenience of the NHS system in the UK. I was sick today. And over here, if you have a sickness which isn't serious (a very subjective matter if I may add), you can either:

1) go see your registered GP, where you have to book an appointment in advance. And if you don't get a time slot within the day, tough luck. Often enough you'll get responses like "I'm sorry. The next available time is in 3 days time. If you feel it is serious,"....read Option no. 2

2) go to the hospital, where they will rate the seriousness of your sickness/condition. Apparently, the sickness I had wasn't too serious, that I had to wait for another 5 hours. Nevermind that I was in pain, and nevermind that I already spent half a day trying to book a slot with a GP. But then within seconds I saw this person on a stretcher, his head covered in blood. Ok, fair enough. That surely did put things into perspective.

3) go to a private walk-in clinic, where it will cost you at least a whopping £70 and that's for consultation only! (These are equivalent to the Klinik Izhams all over KL. The price though, not so much).

Well, in desperate times, fork out the moolah! And boy was I desperate. So I chose Option no. 3. And it is times like these that I wish so much I was in Malaysia.

But all of that is not the point of this entry.

So I was at the clinic. I was handed a registration form and I started filling out my details. Name, age, yadda yadda. And then, it asked for an 'Emergency Contact'. Hmm, skipped that one for a while, and went on to answer the other little questions at the bottom. And then, back to the 'emergency contact'.

I struggled with this one for a while. Who would have thought that a question that would make me completely stumped is one of 'next of kin'. That moment was worse than a job interview, worse than an exam question. My mind was completely blank and not one name came to mind. My parents and brother are back home. The beau's too far away. Surely I have close friends here in London. But what if I put one of them as my emergency contact, and when something happens to me, and they get a phone call, they'll say, "Hold on, who made me responsible for Fera?"

I struggled for a few more minutes with that question. And then I thought of a name, and reluctantly put that down.

And who would have thunk it - that a question like that could provide me with answers that I have been looking for all this while. Where I'd rather be? Who I'd rather be with? And what I'd rather do?

So today, I got 3 questions answered. All for the price of £113 (meds included).