Time and Travel

Anchoring Vignettes for Time

Questions:

Overall, how would you rate the amount of traveling time and the amount of time [name of person/you] waited before being attended to?

Response categories:

1. Very good
2. Good
3. Moderate
4. Bad
5. Very bad

Vignettes:

1. [Carl] goes to the doctor because his child is sick. The doctor says to take the child to the local hospital to stay overnight for observation. The doctor phones the hospital for an ambulance to be sent to fetch the child and his father from the clinic as the child cannot walk. The ambulance arrives in 10 minutes and takes the child and the father immediately to the hospital. They are greeted by hospital staff who put the child on a stretcher and carry him into a ward putting him on a bed. The father then spends about 10 minutes with a hospital nurse giving her their family details.
   
2. [Niels] has a kidney disease and has to go to the hospital every month for a check up. He sees his regular physician at a pre-arranged time and can reach the hospital on a local bus within 15 minutes. In the past six months he has had to phone his doctor twice for urgent advice about his medication. At those times he was able to reach his doctor immediately and received the information he required right away.
   
3. [Afshan] had an accident where he broke his foot. He needs to have a small operation on his foot and can't walk properly. The doctor is able to get him into an operating theatre the next day. The morning after his operation he is visited by his doctor who checks how he is feeling. He is attended to by nurses regularly during his stay.
   
4. [Leila] had pains in her mouth so she visited a dentist. The dentist told her that she needs to have an operation on her teeth and that he would book her in. Her doctor books her into hospital that is about an hour from where she lives. She arrives there in the morning to have her operation. She waits until midday to be admitted.
   
5. [Xavier] had a sore stomach and problems eating, so he went to see the doctor in town. It took him about half an hour by bus to get to the town.
   Then he walked a short way to the doctor's consultation rooms, where he waited with a few people for about half an hour to see the doctor.
   
6. [Lisa] has difficulty getting to a doctor. One day her child gets ill at school. Lisa has to leave work to get the bus, fetch the child from school and take the child to the doctor. The whole journey is about an hour and a half. When she gets to the doctor, she is able to see the doctor in half an hour.
   
7. [Nelson]'s body is in pain and he feels sick. His friend takes him to a local hospital. It takes about an hour to get there because there are lots of people on the road. Once there, they admit him, and put him in a room with 5 other people. He is still feeling terrible and asks for some water, ringing the bell for the nurse. The nurse comes when he calls and brings him some water and pills to make him feel better.
   
8. [Karen] needed to have a test at a clinic to see whether she has malaria. They told her the results would be ready in two days. After 2 days the clinic phoned to say she should come to the clinic to get the results. On the way home from work that day, [Karen] stopped by the clinic to get the results. She waited for 10 minutes before seeing a nurse for the results.
   
9. [Kofi] had a heart operation last year. He had to go to the city hospital once every 3 months to see his doctor for a check-up. It would take him about one hour to get to the hospital and he'd have to wait on average for most of the morning before having his check up.
   
10. Because of an accident, [Evita] goes to the emergency clinic at the local hospital. Her arm is badly broken, and it hurts a lot. She arrives at 8 o'clock in the morning and has to wait for 10 hours in a queue before any health staff talks to her to find out about her problem and treat it.
    
11. [Romero] is really sick with tuberculosis. He needs to see his doctor in the primary care centre every month for renewing his prescription. He lives in a village that doesn't have any doctors so he must walk about 2 hours each time to see the doctor. When he gets there, he usually waits for 2 hours before being seen.
    
12. [Niels] is feeling tired and sees his doctor. He is informed by the doctor that he needs to go to hospital for a blood transfusion. The doctor says [Niels] will need to go the provincial hospital and see a doctor there before getting admitted. [Niels] leaves the doctor and goes directly to the provincial hospital. He waits there for a few hours before being seen by a doctor. The doctor phones and speaks to someone and then says that [Niels] should come back in two days' time. Two days later [Niels] goes to hospital. He takes a bus in the early morning with his wife. She waits for him to be admitted in the morning. It takes about 2 hours to get admitted.
    
13. [Stan] fell down and broke his arm one evening. He was first taken to the local nurse, who decided that he had to be taken by ambulance to the district hospital, a 45 minute drive away. On arrival there, there was no doctor on duty and no-one could be found. He was driven a further 6 hours along some bad roads to get to the next closest hospital. He had to wait for an hour in the hospital for the surgeon to arrive. The surgeon decided an operation was needed but could only schedule a time to operate on Stan in the afternoon.
    
14. [Aitor] lives in a small village. He has had backaches for several years. It takes him several hours on foot to reach the local clinic. He walks because there is no other transport. It is always busy and he has to wait usually about 3 hours to see a doctor. At times he leaves after waiting the whole day without seeing a doctor.