Civil servant?

When will public service employees realise they are called that simply because they are employed to serve the public who, after all, pay their wages.

Having been suffering from pleurisy for over a week and not getting any better despite medical treatment, our family doctor filled in the normal form for my wife to have a chest X-ray at Mosta Clinic so that he would know better what the next step was to treat her ailment.

On Thursday, August 23, I took my wife to the clinic at 10.15 a.m. and, having shown the form to reception, was directed to the X-ray department. As instructed, she handed the form to the technician and, as she was the only patient in the waiting room - there was a person being attended to in the X-ray room - was next in line to be seen.

When the technician finished with his patient, he came out and told my wife: "Come in, I want to talk to you." As soon as she entered the X-ray room he started berating her for not having made a prior appointment, and was extremely rude, saying he was not there for her, or her doctor's, convenience. When she asked if Mosta Clinic was an emergency unit, he agreed it was, but he told her, as she did not have a prior appointment, she had to wait outside until he saw fit to call her in.

Two and a quarter hours later, he ushered her in and his tirade continued. He accused my wife of losing an X-ray she had taken in January and taking it out of the department without permission. As it happened, in January a very genial and helpful technician had handed her the X-ray and told her to take it to one of the doctors at the clinic so she could be given the result there and then.

The doctor had retained the X-ray. When my wife asked if he was accusing her of stealing it, his reply was: "Well, we can't find it."

It is a sad state of affairs when a civil servant can't live up to his title and be civil to the public. In the amount of time he had taken berating my wife and our doctor, he could have quite easily taken the one X-ray required, instead of spitefully keeping my wife waiting for over two hours, having travelled from Mellieha. Perhaps, as they say, he got up on the wrong side of his bed that morning, but that is no excuse for being so abusive and vindictive. He should remember he is there to serve the public.