My first week at the International Institute of Buffalo went relatively well! I am the medical advocate/health intern and so far I have been setting up medical and dental appointments for clients. I have not met any of the refugee clients yet, but I am sure once it gets warmer out I will be taking some of them to their appointments ( I do not have a car).
I did have one frustrating thing happen; a few days ago I had to make dental and medical appointments for a family of five. The health agency that their case manager wanted me to schedule the appointment at gave me the run around. I was transferred and transferred, and than the phone would keep ringing. I felt like I was being ignored and I was even hung up on before I finished telling the representative who I was and why I was calling. Even the receptionist was annoyed; he told me to leave a message and someone would call me back. I never got the voice mail, because the phone kept ringing and the receptionist ended up answering the phone again so I told him I would call back tomorrow.
I finally made the appointments and the case manager was really happy because she was trying to schedule these appointments for weeks, but ended up having the same experience as I did.
So my question is, how are they running this business? This is a health clinic that treats people and accepts new patients but cannot answer the phone…. Although it was frustrating, I learned a lot from the experience; for one, that persistence and patience is everything. Having a positive attitude definitely helps. I am just glad that these appointments were able to get booked!
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