Public Hospital Relay Race

I know I can’t keep comparing my own country to Turkey, but since Turkish prime minister has turned into some little napoleon and keeps pounding himself on the chest for all the wonderful things he and his party is, and has been doing, they might want to spent some money and time on improving the health care system for the PEOPLE of this nation.

Luckily for me in all the years that I’ve been here I’ve never had to go to hospital and just visited a clinic or a private facility for little ailments. That is why I decided (STU-PID) that I could go without insurance for a year. Well…..I got sick, and so sick that the only option was to go to the emergency room and through the system of public hospital.

At arrival at the Didim emergency room, you have to be registered. In my case there is no insurance or anything so I have to pay a fee. With that receipt of payment I can now move on to one of the examine rooms where somebody will look at you…good for me I wasn’t bleeding from the head while searching for my wallet!!

It is about 7 AM and a sleepy attending ER nurse says, without examining me, there is nothing she can do, I need to have a sonogram/ultrasound and an internist must have a look at me. If I can please go to the first floor and take a number for the polyclinic of the internist.

Upstairs I take a number, as well for blood testing and an ultra sound. Fantastic, all my tickets say I am first in line. I look outside the normal entrance of the hospital and see people have lined up in front…..it is like the freaking Rolling Stones will play their last concert!

Well….my ticket says my doctor won’t be at the facility until 9 AM, so now I just have to wait. While waiting, the hallway fills up with people, who than all wait for the respective specialists to take office and start his/her ‘hospital duty’. Interestingly, a number doesn’t really mean much since the electronic notifier of my specialist is not working and people are now piling up in front of the examine office and cutting in line to get in. ”When in Rome…” I do the same and am so happy I haven’t had a major crippling stomach cramp for the past 2 hours!

My specialist must have had a bad night, he doesn’t look at me, doesn’t greet me, points at a bed in the corner and says ‘lay down’. Palpating my stomach (or punching…to me it was the same) he doesn’t ask how long I had the problem, what else is going on or whatever …. I guess he is a psychic The examination takes 40 seconds and he jots down on a piece of paper where he wants me to go next, also says that he will close office at 12.00 so I have to hurry.

The hours that follow now can only be described as the strangest relay race I’ve ever participated in! With my list of ordered test from the doctor I now must go and pay for these tests (on a different floor). In return I get a plastic drinking cup with my name on it (urine sample), a tube with my name on it (blood sample) 2 stickers (xray and ultra sound). You have to race to each test station (scattered throughout the hospital) and have done what is ordered. Each of the workers at these stations are complete robots (sit, stay, turn, put down), and make no eye contact. For all I know they can discover a tumor as large as a fist on your ultra sound and it wouldn’t change their facial expression at all!

Will all test results in print and humongous xray photo under my arm, I am back in line at the specialist. It is 11.50 I sincerely hope I am on time. When I hand over all the collected trophies from my relay race, he looks at them, says ‘hmmm’ a few times and jots more stuff down on a paper. The doctor makes eye contact to tell me I have an ulcer and to go downstairs and get medication he wrote down; and than a hand gesture follows that is universal language for ‘NEEEEEXT!’

Still very happy that I can walk and am not throwing up, I go down for the medication prescribed. Of course downstairs they ask me to pay first for all the medicine on the list and than come back to collect them. When I come back I am literally handed a liter of i.v fluid, 2 syringes and 4 glass ampuls in a BLUE BIN LINER!! With the message to go to the 2nd floor where my medication will be administered.

I have been going through the hospital labyrinth for 5 hours now, and in state of shock I go with my bin liner up the steps. How do people do this when they are too sick to walk? When they have no cash on them to keep paying for the next step? What hospital doctor can treat patients without looking at them, and close the door at 12.00 “sorry, my time here is up…come back tomorrow….if you can get a ticket on time!”

At the second floor I hand over my doctor’s note, and the bin liner. The nurse, who is also not looking (maybe they are not supposed to look at you?), only says ‘room 2013.
I pick an empty bed, sit down and wait. A few minutes later she comes back to inject my bum, and jam an i.v. drip into my arm.
For the following 2 hours while I am laying there, nobody came to check on me or the drip! I had to signal somebody by voice to notify my bag was empty and blood was coming. After the i.v. needle is removed the nurse says I should get a list of medicine from the pharmacy and sends me on my way. “Gecmis Olsun”

I feel much better now, so whatever drugs they gave me work wonders….I guess that’s the positive thing I will take from this. I feel really sorry for anybody that has no choice but to go through the public hospital system. Which in my view is occupied by health professionals that (for reasons not known to me) don’t seem to give a shit who’s in front of them or take time to diagnose. Much can be said about Turkey and it’s and economic growth, growth that seems to have had little positive effect in an area that should care for the people that actually work for this economic growth.

I learned my lesson, and will pay an arm & leg again for health insurance, so next time I can drive into a clinic where people at least pretend they care, and they submit me to excessive testing and diagnosing…but what about all those people that can’t afford it Mr President?