My first patient of the morning is a review patient – he came in earlier in the week with an infected ulcer on his cornea as a result of wearing his contact lenses overnight. He is responding well to treatment. My second patient is another review, this time for anterior uveitis, a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks tissues within the eye. She is responding well to treatment also. I write her a written treatment plan and organise to see her in another two weeks. These consultations take only 10 minutes and I secretly hope that every subsequent patient will be this quick. But for the patient, to see me for just 10 minutes, they need to take the morning off work to drive to the hospital; queue at reception to be registered; queue again for the nurse for an initial assessment; and then wait to be seen by me. They often need to stop by a pharmacy on their way home. This whole process takes hours out of their day and I often need to see patients multiple times over a month before I can fully discharge them.

The worried-looking nurse enters my room and tells me of a patient who has just arrived, complaining of blurry vision, headaches and vomiting. I have to assign priority to this patient over the already-full waiting room at 9am. I examine this young mother of two and find that her optic nerves, the two data cables that connect each eyeball to the brain, are swollen and look angry. I can't let this patient leave until I've proven that this isn't being caused by a tumour in her head. To fully assess her, I need to insert a cannula, organise urgent blood tests, request a same-day CT scan from a radiologist and organise her to be seen by a neurologist. All of this has taken over an hour, and meanwhile, all of the patients from the morning are still waiting. The receptionist reminds me that I have three WorkCover certificates to fill out and a patient is on the phone asking about the results of his tests.

I continue to see patients, apologising to all of them as I introduce myself. Almost all of them take it well. A small number, understandably, are frustrated. Often they are in visible pain as they wait hours to see me. As late afternoon approaches, I haven't had lunch yet but there are patients who have been waiting five hours to be seen. I'll just have a bigger dinner when I get home at 8pm. I have lost two kilograms in the last month.

The nurse brings me three charts for patients who left the clinic without waiting to be seen. The referral letter for one of them says that the patient has noticed double vision and a misalignment of his eyes – if this is caused by an aneurysm, which can rupture in a matter of days, the patient could die. I ring his mobile and leave a message after nobody answers.