My Undesirable Experience with BP Lab Damansara Utama

Since everyone said that performing regular blood test is one of the ways to monitor our health, I decided to perform one as the most recent blood test I did was 3 years ago in Damansara Specialist Centre.

I ended up performing my blood test at BP Lab in Damansara Utama branch 4 days ago. The only reason I picked this branch was because it is the nearest diagnostic centre from my house. I discovered later that when it comes to picking a good diagnostic centre, proximity should not become the main consideration. Instead, the quality of the service rendered should be the priority.

I arrived at the diagnostic centre at 8:30am. There were already 8 or 9 people in front of me. By the time my blood specimen was taken, it was already 10:30 am. I was strongly recommended to consider a RM 1300 health screen package but I declined politely and opted for a RM400 package instead. I noticed the lab officers seems cold and uncoordinated. However, I just shrugged it off as I believed the year end crowd was the cause of their sluggishness. (Malaysia are known to rush for their blood test during this time of the year in order for them to fully utilize their company yearly health welfare, and also to enjoy income tax rebate).

4 days passed and it was new year's eve. Bernard and I went to pick up the result. We arrived at 12pm and were delighted that there was no customer around. The 3 staffs on duty were the same people I met during my blood test. This was when my horror experience began:

Firstly, it took them quite a while to go through their files to locate my report.

Secondly, when they finally passed me my report, I was told if I wanted to meet a doctor for explanation of my result, I have to come back at 3pm or make another appointment on some other days. Since we already have plan for that afternoon, I decided to schedule the appointment on the following week. To my surprise, I was told that the doctor was already fully booked for the whole of January. I then requested to set the appointment on the earliest available date in February. I was then told that they could not arrange that and wanted me to called again end of January ( What is there to prevent the same thing from occuring again in end of January? i.e the whole February is again already fully booked ). Bernard asked this, but their response was a plain " I can't do anything about it". Another staff suggested us to go to Kepong branch for a doctor's consultation. I asked will the same thing happen in Kepong's branch? They said they don't know and I have to call to make my own arrangement.  All right, to make thing easy, we changed our plan and decided to 'catch' the doctor at 3pm. To me, it did not make sense to wait for more than a month to get a doctor to explain to me the results.

Thirdly, when I went back to the lab sharp on the dot at 3pm, there were again no customer. I told the same officer I wanted to see the doctor for result explanation. She asked me to press a number and wait. Why should I press for number when there was no one at the waiting hall? I asked in my heart curiuosly but obeyed her instruction. My number was 4003. The electronic board displaying the number of queue was showing 0000.

I waited and waited as I thought the doctor has not arrived yet.  By 3:40 pm, another couple came in. They waited for about 10 mins before another officer (which we have not met before) appeared and informed them that they can see the doctor at 4pm. Bernard who was all the while waiting patiently with me quickly stood up and asked the new officer if the doctor was in, and if he was in why hasn't he attended to us?

The officer looked puzzle and asked her colleague (the officer who attended to us earlier, who was sitting in front of us all the while). She took a peep at us and her jaw dropped. OH MY GOD, we were invisible for the past 50 minutes, even though we were the only customer and we were sitting right in front of her big round face! In addition, we even made 2 trips, passing by the 3 officers to go to the toilet during our long wait.

My blood instantly boiled and asked her :"So you did not inform the doctor earlier?"

With no expression, she said: " Sorry loh." and continue to do her 'CEO paper work'.

I became puzzled thinking what was the number for? At that moment I looked up at the electronic board, it was already switched off. So, they were already prepared to go home and maybe would have locked us in for the New Year Holiday had we not opened our mouth. Bernard and I pinched each other to check if we were dreaming.

We went in to see the doctor and the session was over in less than 2 minutes. Both of us thank the doctor and walked straight out from the lab without even looking at the staffs, as I feared I might do something extreme to harm her, if I looked at her face one more time.

So, if you want a decent service, go somewhere else. There are better diagnostic centres, be it some other BP branches or another service providers.

BP Lab Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya

Big round face looking very busy

Big round face, still so busy ......

My 4-day-old bruise. I would not have noticed it so much if I did not have so much time waiting.