The concierge expressed
relief when I answered. A lady’s 11 year-old son was seriously ill, but the
mother had refused to take him to an emergency room. She had been pestering the
hotel staff all day.
“What’s the problem?” I
asked. “You only had to phone me.”
I’d made over 300 visits
to that hotel since the 1990s. But even as I spoke, I remembered that it hadn’t
called in six months. As I feared, the concierge explained that a new general
manager had decreed that, for liability reasons, sick guests would be directed
to the local emergency room unless calling 911 was appropriate. Doctor
referrals were forbidden.
At any given time, about
twenty percent of Los Angeles
hotels have this policy, but it’s never the same twenty percent. Hotels adopt
and then discard this rule because it causes public relations problems. Most
guests don’t require 911 and don’t want to go to an emergency room, so they
stay in the hotel, sick and resentful. A few persistent guests make so much
trouble that, as in this case, a desperate employee disobeys her boss. I’ve
made a dozen such visits.
Calling me would have
saved everyone trouble. The child had a fever and a bad cough, a routine viral
infection. It was an easy visit.
Afterward, as I was
commiserating with the concierge, my phone rang with an example of how things
are done right. A man at the Langham in Pasadena
wanted a doctor to check out his cold. I told him I’d arrive in 45 minutes.