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Dr Julius Bourke 2023-05-17 Person 1 5 0

First appointment was really positive. He was witty sharp and gave his full attention even if he was a little arrogent he can get away with it. I felt hopeful when I left. Second appointment I feel I've basically paid for a very very negative experience. I was contacted by Dr Bourkes secretary asking whether I could arrive an hour early. I explained that I couldn't and was told that my appointment would be 10 minutes earlier than previously confirmed- which was fine. From the moment we entered the room Dr Bourke explained that I'd not got much time as I'd only booked a follow-up appointment (which his secretary had confirmed would be 30 minutes). So I started to speed talk..whilst feeling even more anxious. I said that I wanted Dr Bourke to be in charge of my care - he said it's complicated because of my location. After 10 minutes he said 'we are done here' which I found very confusing. We tried to continue and to explain the current situation but was asked by Dr Bourke what is my question. My question was could he help me, and he replied that isn't a question. He hastily booked me in for 3 weeks time via zoom and again said we're done here. He was glancing up at the wall quite often - so I looked up to where his gaze went to - a clock. After 18 minutes he explained that he did have a meeting he needed to get to and opened the door for us to leave. We sat in the reception area for about an hour talking about what had just happened as neither of us could believe it. After a few minutes Dr Bourke appeared at the reception desk perhaps to sign out and then 'ran' down the stairs and out the building, the receptionist shouted 'have a good one'. This lead us to have the opinion that Dr Bourke was perhaps not headed to another meeting. He also suggested during the appointment that I speak with bupa to find out if they would cover me for at least 2 weeks in hospital. In my troubled vunerable mind I was thinking that I'd need to do this, I want to be hospitalised and to feel safe and to find a way forward, but my friend brought me back to reality. This person who's going to be in charge of my care in hospital, was the person who had just given me the most uncaring, unhopeful, most negative experience I've ever lever had the displeasure to be paying for. Why would he be any different if I was an inpatient. I appreciate this is a very negative review, but I believe it to be fair. I'd imagine Dr Bourke can be very charming and funny and if I'd met him in a different setting I'd probably have a very different opinion. But I learnt very quickly that he does not genuinely care, and is very much lacking in patience. I thought about this situation long and hard before posting this review. I'd discussed it with close friends, and decided not to act straight away and I also naively thought that Dr Bourke might have reflected upon the way he treated me that day, and even that he may apologise and offer me an appointment to see him again FOC. Even after sending him our concerns, he responded to each point very efficiently, explaining that this was not the case in terms of his experience. I'm very grateful that my close friend sat in on the meeting with me, else I would have doubted my own judgement. She was in full disbelief over the experience as was I, and she even believed that I was being mocked by Dr Bourke when I explained my current eating habits since being on mirtazapine. I feel really sad about leaving this review because I have never seen a private phychatrist before and expected much more. Positives were the receptionist, who was really kind when I mentioned that my appointment had been 18 minutes and wd my invoice reflect this. She said I'd need to get in touch with Dr Bourkes secretary. It was explained to me they l that appointments can be from 5 to 20 minutes and that the invoice remains the same - and that this is detailed in the ts&Cs. Admittedly I'm not one for reading terms and conditions so I'm partially to blame but I also feel fully confident that my appointment was cut short due to Dr Bourkes social calender.