It's always harder to live abroad than in your own country, especially if the language is different. It might help if you're in a country in which the second language is English, like the one I'm in. But it's not the language that will make your life hell sometimes...it's the people. Not the people you see on the streets, but those with which you interact when you need something. The doctors, the ones working in the public sector, anywhere you need some official documents etc. While for the locals these places will be like any other place, for immigrants it's the place to go when you feel the need to be insulted, talked down to or ignored.
Here's the setting: my wife was feeling some pain in her lower abdomen. I have medical insurance and she benefits from it, too. I decide to take her to the clinic to see what's wrong. The whole process after getting to the clinic is just something nobody should go through. Get up early at 6, be there before 7, get a number and wait. While the opening hours are from 7 am to 5 pm, the place to make an appointment opens at around 7:40. Morning coffee is very important to these people. After they open, everybody gets in line. But not in the order dictated by the number you got while walking in. Nooo! That would be too easy. They shove and push you to get in front. If you say something to them (in English) they just push you away mumbling something in their language. So, just put your head down, quietly waiting for your turn, whenever it may come. You get there after about 1 hour of waiting and after that it's time to go see the designated doctor. Outside the doctor's office, you wait. But not because there's a line of patients. Don't be naive. The reason for your added wait time is because the nice doctor didn't finish his/her coffee and gossip time. They will open at around 9 am. Get in the office in the end, but all they will do is feel the region in which you have pain and tell you that it may be this, but it can also be that, it's better you go to the general hospital because we can't be sure here. Total time : 3.5 hours. Results : 0.
Next step, the general hospital. Like any big hospital, the feeling you get when you walk in can be summed into one word: Chaos! The steps to take here are quite simple: information office > nurse where the doctor should be > 20-30 minutes of waiting while the nurse tries to get hold of the doctor > go to the office where the doctor should be > wait 20-30 minutes until the doctor comes > the doctor comes, wait another 10-15 minutes until he decides he can see you > the doctor sees you and sends you to the first aid room (emergency) because he needs tests done on you, but he can't be bothered to have one of his nurses (qualified to do those tests) do the tests instead. Total time : 1.5 hours. Results : 0
The last step is the emergency room. A place in which no person with a sensitive stomach should stay. While some of the cases present there are really an emergency (like broken legs, burn victims and people cut by accident) the rest shouldn't even be there. I'm talking about people that suffer from flu, stomach pain, indigestion etc. These people should be checked up by a doctor outside the emergency room. It's not even an emergency. That's why the notion of triage was invented... Of course, the people having these kind of pain and illnesses are suffering and they might disagree with me about the emergency part, but what I'm trying to say is that they should be treated outside the emergency room, leaving that place for the real emergencies. I've drifted from the point a little, but bear with me. We register there and wait. And wait. And wait. So much that we realised the people in the room changed 2 times and we still haven't gotten so much as a hello. I go and ask them if everything is ok and if we are going to be seen by someone soon. Then I saw something that pissed me off on the spot: our registration paper wasn't even in the same stack as the others. I kept looking to see what happens with our paper when the doctors were coming to pick up their patients....they were reading the names on the paper and they kept passing our paper along. Just because I wasn't "one of them". Haven't these people taken an oath to treat anyone regardless of their origin, social status, race? I guess not. After 3.5 hours of waiting, finally a nurse shows up and invites us inside the emergency room. Sits my wife on a bed, takes her blood pressure, her temperature and leaves. Not 15 minutes after I see that nurse dressed normally leaving the emergency room. Her shift was over. So? What now? Is somebody else coming to see my wife? Sure.....not! We waited another hour while hordes of other people come and go. Finally another nurse comes, takes an urine sample and goes to get the results. Comes back after 20 minutes and gives us the treatment. Total time : 5 hours. Result : job done.
So, after 10 hours spent running around and waiting, we get the job done. What I would like to know is, IF I was a local, would that time be less? My firm belief is that it would be less. By a whole lot. The moral of this is......don't get sick when you're abroad!
