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Why Is It Taking So Long? A Social Problem?

Image by Macao Photo Agency on Unsplash

Imagine you are sitting in a hospital waiting room because you have a stomach ache. You arrived at the hospital emergency room at 2 a.m., registered, and sat down to wait. It is now 3:30 a.m. You have been moved to another room, but you’re still waiting. You’re weary and frustrated. Why is this taking so long? Why are “they” so “slow”?

You may have asked these questions or similar ones in different scenarios, whether it was waiting for a bus, standing in a queue, or making a call. Why is it taking so long? Why are “they” so “slow”? But have you gone further to think through what might cause such a delay. Is it just that the workers are “too slow”? Or could other issues be the cause? Perhaps the hospital staff are overstretched and lacking resources. As you try to make sense of the scenario, ask yourself: what assumptions are embedded in how you understand the situation? The scenario above reminds us that we all make assumptions, especially when trying to understand and solve problems. This doesn’t mean our assumptions are always correct, a topic we will explore further in this module.

If many other people are experiencing a problem, such as delays at the hospital, an issue may be more than just an . It may be a , something which affects a population more widely. This module asks us to look at the problems we encounter in our everyday lives and ask, Is there more to this story? Are others experiencing these problems too? How come? And how can we address this?