I see a lot of specialists in a year's time. I've seen many variations and configurations of waiting rooms and treatment rooms. It shocks me that so many offices, whose primary business is to treat sick people, are so poorly designed when it comes to handling mobility aids.
Yesterday I went to see my eye specialist in West Branch. Office is in a one-story building, and the inner door to the office swings inward. There is a reception desk immediately to the right, and a coat area to the left, on the same wall as the door. The back wall is entirely a frames display. It circles around in both directions and takes up about 1/3 of each wall. There are small work stations for the tech to adjust your frames, and the rest of the room is seating. Five chairs on the left wall, three in the middle of the room facing them, three back-to-back with the other three and two on the opposite wall, next to the hallway leading back to the treatment rooms. There is no room to park a wheelchair that is not blocking at least one walkway. My rolling walker was almost as bad, but I was able to nab an end chair and position the walker so that it was almost in my lap.
I was the youngest patient there. There were two elderly people there with their attendants pushing them in wheelchairs. One person was on oxygen and was wheeling around a tank of oxygen on a little cart. Every time someone's name was called, at least three people had to move.
The other doctors I see have similar waiting areas. My endocrinologist (many older, diabetic patients with foot and leg problems), my dentist (even the HALLWAY is hard to squeeze down!), my kidney doctor (six seats, and if everyone is able-bodied, all six pairs of knees are dangerously close to touching in the center of the room. Don't even get me started on the waiting areas at Kresge Eye Institute in Detroit.
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