Hospital Fun

Listening to: Chicken Little

Although fun is probably a misnomer, there was indeed a hospital involved. A few nights ago (after we landed in Bangalore, thank god!) the husband got a 103.3 fever. We took a cab to my sister in law’s house so I could watch her kids on their day off and because he was sick. We took him to the hospital in the morning because his fever was so high. We went into the casualty/emergency department because there were no general doctors at the hospital that day. We got right in and they took his temp/heart rate.  A random nurse (that I thought was a doctor) wanted to admit him overnight. He didn't want to stay because first day of work was the next day. Not realizing that she was not a doctor, and this particular hospital has a tendency to admit people to make money, I told him he should. I was sent by myself to the admission desk with a note from the doctor.  After assuring the ridiculously rude girl at the desk that no, I did not want a deluxe private room, she sent me over to the counter to pay for the room, because you pay ahead of time here. This led to finding out that 10,000 rupees were required as a deposit for a 1 night stay in a semi private room. After assuring them no fewer than 8 times that no, I did not want a delux private room, the cash only rule was introduced. Since no one walks around with 10,000 rupees, I had to find some money.

I called my sister in law to let her know what’s up. This led to me wandering around in Marathahalli (my sister in law’s neighborhood) looking for an ATM who's location was sketchily described to me as down a gully (small alley) after a restaurant. After walking for 45 minutes, asking about people in English, Hindi, and Telugu if they knew where it was and getting blank stares and shrugs, I finally found a sign for it, only to discover I had forgotten our pin. The good news, you can use your card at any ATM in India without getting a fee for using a different bank.

Back to the hospital, cursing up a storm the whole way. Back to ATM, only to have my sister in law call me in a panic because she had called me 17 times and was sure I had been kidnapped because I didn't hear the phone ring. The bad news – this was a ghetto ATM that didn’t work anyhow. My sister in law walked down to the ATM and then told me the admitting thing was crap and probably only because I was white. 1 hour later, more attitude from the girl at the desk, and 1,000 rupees later, we freed my husband from the hospital and went home. It's rather funny now that I think about it, so not funny at the time. Calls were made to Hyderabad to get some medical advice from family.

They sent us home with a lot of complaining about how we couldn't take care of him at home and some industrial strength tylenol.  Husband’s fever did come down, but he got Delhi belly anyhow, leading to more calls to Hyderabad.  He went to work anyhow the past few days and is doing better. He has some antibiotics, which will hopefully solve the problem.

I ended up getting sick yesterday too. I had a decent fever, some vomiting and Delhi belly too. More industrial strength Tylenol and I’m back to almost normal today, although I am taking it easy on the spice, which is totally disheartening, because I was really enjoying it after all the blah food on our trip.

What I will say is that this particular hospital was clean and modern. It's just a shame that the trust in medical professionals just isn't there.

Becky