The Difficulty of Reaching People

On Friday I tried to get a surgery consult, and it was soooooo difficult to find someone. One of the nurses told me to call Ward D (surgical ward), and they told me no surgeons there, and to call the on call surgeon's direct phone...which I called many many times and no one picked up, and then they told me to try ward B, O, A, T, P (haha..."boat"), ...and probably some other letter. And with each call, no one would pick up until I stayed on the line for >1 minute and called multiple times. Of course, no surgeon at any of those and each told me to call another ward, and then finally I found the receptionist and asked him to try to call the surgeon, and then he told me the direct phone number was the wrong one, and he called some big surgeon boss who then gave me the right number. I'm kicking myself thinking, why didn't you tell me this earlier?!!  ....well it's because this receptionist has a habit of disappearing and not being at the desk.  But luckily, I got a hold of the surgeon, who came at 4:15pm, and managed to send the patient to get the procedure done before 5pm on a Friday.  Sighs...it's just hard to reach people...  But it was amazing they still managed to get something done at the end of a Friday. I was amazed.