This week I have been bothered and bewildered by names of agencies and signage. Specifically, I have been confused by the names associated with health care in Nanaimo.

When I moved here a year or so ago I made sure that I signed on right away with Service BC, a government office that connects all provincial government service agencies and which automatically connected me with BC Health Services. I thought that would be all I needed to do, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated.

I had already anticipated a problem with finding a family doctor, so I made sure to get my medications provided for with a year-long prescription from my former doctor in Alberta. Recently, that prescription expired, so I had to find a doctor to initiate a renewal.

Family doctors are now harder to find than hens’ teeth, so I added my name to the provincial waiting list, and then I signed on with a tele-health system through my tv and phone service providers, Telus Health. After a couple of weeks, they gave me a convenient video meeting with a doctor who asked all the normal new-doctor/patient questions. He also wrote a three-month prescription for me, and initiated a request for the usual annual blood tests and a mammogram. I was overdue for both, so that came as no surprise.

The testing was to be carried out through an organization called LifeLabs, a chain of testing centres that I had seen in nearby shopping malls. The emails associated with my appointment came with the LifeLabs logo, and so I expected to see the same at the clinic I was assigned to. That was an incorrect assumption. Instead, I was to go to Island Health Sat Lab.

I had no idea what that meant, but I guessed it probably didn’t refer to Saturday labour or saturnalian labyrinths. Sure enough, when I Googled the name I discovered that it was the satellite laboratory for the local hospital which comes under the auspices of the Island Health Authority. Are you confused yet? I know I was.

If you are keeping track, so far we have Service BC, BC Health Services, Telus Health, LifeLabs, Island Health Sat Lab, Island Health Authority, and Nanaimo General Regional Hospital. But, we are not done yet.

When I went to keep the appointment, I turned up at the address for the sat lab and found that it looked a bit like a strip mall, and that the name on the sign at the entrance was none of the names already mentioned. It said Hospital Commons and had a short list of facilities in a font too small to read as I drove into the lot. I parked my car anyway, because I knew I had the correct address, and spent several minutes looking at the numbers that were displayed instead of names on the row of health care-related facilities. By now I had abandoned the hope of ever seeing the words LifeLabs or BC Health Services again.

The units in this facility were called suites, and each had a number. There were spaces on the identification boards outside each suite for names, but most were blank. “Not to worry,” I thought. “There must be a directory board somewhere.” Sure enough, there was a directory board but all the writing on it was so faded as to be illegible. At this point I started to wonder if this was some kind of TikTok prank.

As I turned my head, though, I saw a sign that included the words “Sat Lab” and I hoped it was the sat lab I was looking for. I wasn’t sure, though, because the sign also included the words “VIHA Hospitable” which meant nothing to me. I wondered if that was a typo and should have read VIHA Hospital, but I’ve stopped correcting public errors in grammar since I retired from teaching. Well, most of the time, anyway.

With some trepidation I approached the suite number indicated on that sign and found a place that looked promising. I was a little unnerved by a sign telling me not to open the door but to wait outside, and I couldn’t see in through the one-way glass, but I was fairly certain it was not a speakeasy. Quite quickly someone in medical scrubs came out to check my name off a list and let me in. The staff there seemed to be continuing with Covid distancing protocols, which makes sense, and I was glad I had found the right place.

I mentioned to the woman who let me in that I had been bewildered in trying to find the place, and she looked surprised. I said that I had never been there before and she seemed to think that explained everything. I didn’t bother to tell her about the signage issues. I just left that thought blank.