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I have no sympathy for the receptionists.
After my O-levels in 1956, at the age of 15, I became a 'jr clerk' in the Head Office (mainly open plan) of a large passenger/cargo shipping company. My desk was close to the entrance, so I often had to respond to clients' initial enquiries. If they asked for a particular person, I wouldn't have said 'Oh they're out of the office and won't be back till .../I don't know when they'll be back', I'd have asked what they wanted, and taken it from there. Nobody trained me on that, so I suppose it was 'common sense'. I have to suppose that nowadays, in an A&E dept, receptionists are given some specific training, inc to expect that people may be distressed, and to take that into account in their way of dealing with them.
I wonder if any of your jaws will drop, as they have, in the last 30 years, with those I tell that, by my second year, I would, for example, be given the task of taking a ledger and a large amount of cash (judge the equivalent now), from the office or our bank up the road, to our dock office 10 mins walk away, where I would board a recently returned vessel and sit alongside the Purser, with his ledger, and countersign the 6-8 weeks wages paid out to the crew. (I got £3/week - now = £50.) What has changed that it seems so strange? If you're in a large-ish firm, I suppose you may have 18 year-olds there; would you entrust similar work to them and, if not, why?