Health Clinic

I felt like I got a real authentic LA experience when I went to the health clinic. I needed to get a TB test for a job working with kids. I looked up TB test sites and went to the one closest to my house, which was in downtown. I waited in line for about 20 minutes. When I got to the front, the receptionist took one look at me and said, “You don’t live in downtown do you?” (I love how just by looking at someone you can say, you don’t belong here.) I told her I lived by USC and this was the one closest to my house. She said you have to go to the one assigned to you and it’s not based off which one is closest. She helped me find the correct clinic to go to. So I go to the other health clinic around 12 in the afternoon and they tell me that it’s too late and I will need to come back the next day at 8am to get the TB test. I thought maybe I should get there a little before 8am since at 12pm, they already had enough people for the whole day. So I come back and get there around 7:35am and there is already about 15 people in line. By 8:00am there were about 40 people in line already. It seemed like this clinic was just to get shots, it didn’t look like people were even seeing a doctor. So they let us in at 8 and we get a number. (This experience reminded me of when I volunteered at People Assisting the Homeless. The homeless would have to get in line at about 5am in the morning in order to be one of the first 15 people to see a case manager to help them get into a transitional housing program). Once I got a number I waited about another hour to get the TB test. The scene of the health clinic reminded me a lot of a scene from the movie, Save the Last Dance. There is a scene where Sarah goes to a health clinic with Chenelle and her son. The waiting room is packed with people. There are people complaining, babies crying, and nothing seems to be moving along. That’s kind of what it felt like. While waiting, I started talking to this young guy who told me that he recently got evicted from his apt and he was living in a halfway house. He told me how they were pretty strict and didn’t let him leave the house very much. He said it was his birthday in a few days and he wasn’t sure what to do since he thought they wouldn’t let him leave the house.

What I learned about this experience was the bureaucracy of the health care system. Very inefficient, very time consuming. It was ok for me, because I am unemployed and have all the time in the world, but to people who have jobs, how do you have time for this? It also felt good in a way to be with the people and be experiencing it for myself, as opposed to usually being on the outside, helping the people who were experiencing the system. But this time I was with the people experiencing it myself. Although I was the only white person there, I was with them, and it was the first time I felt a part of the neighborhood. Even though it was a short and simple experience it was very significant to me in being here in the city.