It took me about nine drafts.

He wrote back in eleven days, by post, on hospital letterhead, having first cleared it with the health system’s legal department, which I know because he told me so in the second paragraph.

He said that he could not discuss another person’s care without authorization and that I had supplied that authorization and that he was therefore going to answer my question directly.

And then he said: “You asked me whether I should have gone down one floor and looked.