This review is about the manner of a staff member when taking a phone call inquiry in emergency, about the condition of a patient. Despite the fact that the patient records would have been at the hospital for all the multiple times he had been there, and I was definitely the contact person on his paperwork, she refused to give me any information at all, repeating ‘I don’t know who you are.’ When I repeated that I was the next of kin and the person identified as the emergency contact, she said she did not appreciate my tone and hung up. I admit I was assertive, but not aggressive. I rang back, got a different person on the other end of the phone, and suddenly I was able to find out what I needed to know. The young girl with whom I originally spoke needs to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which people are asking questions and perhaps some empathy as well for the concerns being felt by those who are at the mercy of the hospital bureaucracy .