Anatomy of a Complaint Letter

I like reading complaint letters.

For two reasons:

First of all, I believe in the complaint letter as an avenue of feedback to let us know how we are doing.

It is also interesting to try to discern the intention behind the complaint letter, and how the writers had tried to craft the letter in such a way to make their complaints seem more justified, and the crime of the person/institution complained against more heinous.

Take for instance this one from today’s ST Forum. Bear in mind, as usual, that the letter may have been edited.


Why is KK Hospital keeping my son's x-ray films?

My seven-year-old son accidentally swallowed a paper clip recently. He was rushed to KK Children's Hospital where we were told to get an X-ray.


‘where we were told to get an X-ray’ instead of ‘where an X-ray was done for him’. Note the subtle difference?


To add to my anxiety, the radiologist proceeded with the request form routinely as she hummed to a song and teased my son 'you Superman ah?'

She showed no sympathy and was certainly oblivious to our distress. She also did not ask whether I required a copy of the X-rays.


Now, if you were the radiologist (who I assume was really the radiographer), how would you try to put the child at ease? Behave in a similar state of anxiety as the patient or his mother? In a quiet, clinical manner which might be interpreted as ‘uncaring’? Or try to be friendly and joke with the child?


An emergency procedure removed the paper clip lodged in my child's esophagus.

When the discharge summary came, it not only wrongly stated my son's gender as 'female patient' thus making my insurance claim more tedious,


It is customary when writing a complaint letter, it seems, to pad the primary complaint with other minor inconveniences experienced, which in this case would have been easily remedied by the clerical staff. And the primary complaint is?


... the hospital also refused to give the X-rays to me.


Right there.


Instead, it said that I did not make known my intention to the radiologist to have a copy before the X-ray was done. Isn't it the responsibility of the hospital staff or the radiologist to explain beforehand the policies and procedures to the patient before the X-ray was taken?


Actually, it doesn’t really matter whether her request for a copy of the X-ray was made known before or after the X-ray was taken, since one can always print extra copies, like with photographs.

It is the duty of the radiographer to explain the procedure before taking the X-ray; but to explain the policies? When she was already in a state of ‘distress’? What would she have said about the radiographer who was taking her time explaining the policy for requesting a copy of the X-ray film when her son was suffering from a medical emergency?

Still, her not having asked for a copy earlier on is no reason for not giving her a copy when she asked for it later...


Why is the hospital retaining the X-rays for non-chronic cases, which are eventually discarded, instead of scanning them into its system for future referral? Aren't we entitled to our own medical records and diagnosis?

I need the X-rays to remind and educate my children as well as for their personal medical record.


I think by the time a child is old enough to read an X-ray, he or she would not be swallowing paper clips. I know I stopped swallowing paper clips when I entered medical school – they were just too expensive at the CO-OP.

But seriously, this isn’t the first complaint letter concerning the release of X-ray films; there were a couple just these past couple of weeks? If memory serves, the hospital should be storing their X-rays electronically by now. Nevertheless, the process of obtaining a duplicate copy of an X-ray would still entail some signing of forms, and I suspect a payment, which was not mentioned in the letter.

I think the writer has a legitimate complaint (they almost always do), but again I take exception to the fact that she had chosen to implicate a healthcare worker (the radiographer/radiologist), who seem to have done her job safely and effectively, when her primary dissatisfaction was with the policy on release of X-rays.

It is no easy task to get a child to lie still enough for an X-ray, and it seems that despite the humming and 'superman' joke, the radiographer nevertheless managed to get a film done so that the child could have his emergency scope.

Equally interesting, of course, are the replies to complaint letters. Let’s see how the hospital reply to this one.