Shorter wait for treatment

Spent yesterday morning at the eye clinic of the Penang general hospital. Was there for my regular eye check-up which comes round approximately every six months.

Ever since the pandemic hit the country in March last year, there is a noticeably thinner crowd of people at the out-patient clinics. Formerly, the place would be packed with people and it would be very difficult to squeeze into the waiting area, let alone find a place to sit. What used to be people milling around the entrance, well, I haven't seen this lately. Patient control seems more efficient now. There are stricter checks at the point of entry. People whose appointments were at a later time were not allowed into the clinics to register themselves earlier. 

I've been told that the less pressing cases have been diverted to the district government clinics for treatment and thus the more urgent ones are seen at the GH. In this respect, I don't know whether to consider myself lucky or not! Maybe I should, because our eyes are very important. But then holistically, all parts of our body are important, not only our eyes. 

Anyway, despite social distancing at the hospital, there are now ample places to sit and wait. What also used to be a long, long wait for treatment has improved remarkably. I was in and out of the hospital - and it included waiting time to collect my medication - within two hours! (Before the pandemic, if my appointment had been scheduled for 9am, I would invariably leave the hospital only after 3pm: a six-hour wait for consultation!)

This consultation period could have been shorter but I had to wait for my eyes to be properly dilated, and this took up about 40 minutes! Four times I had to have their eye drops because each time the nurse commented that my eyes weren't dilated enough. This caused me some problems eventually because my eyes became overly sensitive to the glare of the midday sun. It wouldn't have been so bad if I received only one one or two eye drops, but I had four! 

Luckily, like always, my wife had driven me to the hospital because this matter of my eye dilation had occurred before. Extra careful now. She has been driving me to the hospital and back. And luckily for once, I had the presence of mind to bring along my dark shades. What would I have done without them yesterday!