Appletree, not so much a clinic as a closed door

With Ottawacker Jr. being incapacitated with strep throat - or perhaps Fifth disease or some other rash-inducing malady - and Mrs Ottawacker away from home on Official Business in Montreal, it was time for me to step up to the plate and use the local walk-in clinic.

Open from 8.30, said the web site, a balm to my two-hour-sleep-tired eyes.

Bollocks. Closed at 8.30. Closed at 9 o'clock, even with a queue of coughing, spluttering, farting and creaking invalids waiting outside.

At 9.15, a technician comes up, can't use the pad to get in as "it is frozen" and goes away. At 9.30, she comes back with a coffee and a cup  of hot water to pour over the pad.

Miraculously, it works. In we go,

Then she tells us there is no doctor available today.

Instead, we are treated to a shambolic (or shambollock) attempt to use the videoconferencing opportunity offered by Ontario's public health system. After 45 minutes, she manages to get through to Dr Vaishnav, who gives us 23 seconds of his time (no exaggeration) to diagnose the illness of a 6-year-old.

"Have some antibiotics," he says. So we did,