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It toots.
Then a tinny music on hold sounds that you wouldn't even play in the elevator.
All of a sudden the system hangs up by itself.
A robot voice announces the request to try again at a later time.
I want to get boosters for the second time because of a previous illness - and I already fail on the hotline of a vaccinator that hamburg.de recommended to me.
The first point of contact is the family doctor, it says.
But my family doctor does not vaccinate, which has been on his website for months.
The practice is no longer accepting new patients.
The last time I was there, I felt like a therapist.
The doctor wailed.
He explained to me that they needed a new telephone system because the old one could no longer cope with the increasing number of calls.
What I would think is right, the older people wouldn't get along so well with an internet appointment booking system?
"Uh, I'm actually here for something completely different," I thought, but then asked, very empathetically - I wanted to be treated well - if that bothered him a lot.
"Yes," he said.
People seem to be more ill than they were before the pandemic, or is it the doctors?
The other day when I was jogging, I overheard a conversation like this, quite by accident: »My neurologist can no longer be reached, neither by telephone nor by e-mail or fax.«
Two days later I saw an advertisement in the Berlin »Tagesspiegel«: »Looking for a doctor (m/f/d).
Since November 2019 I have been looking for a doctor for my mother who also makes house calls.«
I have to think about the past.
That was still there.
We also got all vaccinations from the family doctor.
It was natural.
You just went there and sat in the waiting room.
Without appointment.
Today that is unthinkable.
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I am a cash patient.
I had made up my mind to do this since my early twenties.
I didn't want to be cheaply lured into a system by the private sector that could later drive you into poverty in old age.
In addition, I have always been in favor of a solidarity-based healthcare system that supports everyone equally and is supported equally by everyone.
Today I take care of the concerns of my family doctor.
Whether this fate also hits privately insured?
They'll definitely get to a doctor's appointment faster.
The doctor may have been able to afford a working telephone system beforehand.
Hamburg.de is now suggesting a vaccination center for me.
I've had a natural aversion to this since my first booster.
I stood in the booster boa in the rain for many hours, then was turned away with the argument that I missed the Stiko's deadline by a few days.
But then I read that Hamburg will soon have to throw away 60,000 doses of vaccine.
There might be one left for someone willing to vaccinate?
I'm finally too young for anything
I boldly go to the given address.
I have learned the Stiko deadlines by heart.
This time I fulfill them completely.
In front of the house entrance I meet a retired couple who are wandering around.
"Surely you're also looking for the vaccination center," I say in the superior voice of a journalist who thinks she has inhaled the research.
Together we wander through the urban canyons.
After 20 minutes we found our destination.
A self-painted DIN A4 note is hanging outside, not visible from the street.
Inside: nobody.
No clientele.
"Hooray!" I yell inwardly, then they can't turn me away.
As I fill out my questionnaire, I hear the idle staff at the vaccination center whispering, "She's not old enough!" I grin, finally I'm too young for anything, but then a doctor appears, standing uncomfortably close sits down like she has bad news.
»You are still far too young for a second booster, which Stiko says, only after 70!«
more on the subject
Fourth vaccination: Too early a second booster could be counterproductive in younger people
External and self-protection: This is how the booster slows down the infection by Julia Merlot
Immune response to Covid-19: That's probably why most people don't need a second boosterBy Julia Merlot
This time I'm prepared, I pull out my certificate that proves my previous illness.
"If your family doctor gave you a certificate, why doesn't he vaccinate you?" the doctor asks in an argumentative mood.
"Because... you know, he doesn't vaccinate..." - "The certificate is from last year," says the vaccinator.
“Yes, but the disease isn't gone.
It's chronic!' We rock ourselves up, but at some point I realize that if I don't back down now, she'll throw me out again.
Without spades.
I cunningly change tactics and start whining like my GP: “I worry so much when the ventilators have to shut down”—like the phone system, I think as I say this—“because they don't anymore manage to get enough air into my lungs?” I give it a douche look.
It works!
Without further instructions I get my vaccination ration.
Later I feel as if I had illegally obtained an achievement.
But learning from doctors means surviving!
Then last week I got sick.
Respiratory infection, no corona.
I opened my GP's page.
It says you should definitely report it.
»Please visit our practice in good time and do not delay any symptoms!«
So I'll call.
It toots.
Then: the torture music.
You have a new phone system.
Nobody picks up.