I hate people

I have lost my faith in mankind......again.

I work in an inner city clinic where the vast majority of our patients are underprivileged to say the least. They also are suspect to many of diseases of the inner city. We have an alarmingly high asthma rate. It is due to many factors, poverty, poor living conditions, mold, cockroaches, and the fact that at baseline, Blacks have a higher risk for having asthma.

Anyway, we try to see our pediatric asthma patients at least every 3 months, to check on their medications and make sure we do not need to adjust anything, as well as to do teaching. Well, as you can imagine, we have a small percentage of patients who actually show up for these appointments. So, we resorted to bribery. We sent out postcards and asked our patients to bring it in during their asthma visit for a free gift. Nothing big, just stuff from the dollar store, but we are trying to get the kids in and see how many people respond to our mailings as we have done many mailings in the past reminding people to schedule asthma visits with little response. Tonight, I had a grand mom (who has custody) bring in 2 kids aged 3 and 4 for their asthma visits with her postcard in hand. Great. The kids keep talking about their prize. I finish the visit, go to get the toys and they are GONE! GONE! They were in the closet in my office where I have a bunch of other crap including cream samples, formula, and nebulizers. I look everywhere they could possibly be and they are nowhere to be found. I am disgusted. The grand mom was really understanding and we will get toys for the kids but I felt like crap. I HATE promising kids stuff and then falling through. It makes you look like I liar and kids remember. I never lie to them. If they need a shot, I tell them. If it is going to hurt I tell them, in a nice way of course. It is way better to be honest with them. Who knows who stole the gifts, but we have had issues with the cleaning staff in the past. All I know is I hope they really needed them.