Health Care in India

Not everything is going exactly according to plan here in India. I have had several bouts with high fever over the last six days. But this has given me a fabulous opportunity to learn all about the health care system in India, "up close and personal" as they say in the US.

The boys here were drawing straws to decide who was going to administer last rites when they apparently decided to get a second opinion before proceeding. No sense going to all that trouble, only to have a "false start". So they voted that Fr. Ravi should take me to the hospital to have a blood test to check for a variety of exotic and fun sounding pathogens like dengue fever. My first clue that I wasn't thinking straight should have been that I was willing to go with him. But I thought maybe I would be pleasantly surprised to find that the Mayo had just opened a brand new shiny facility here just around the corner.

As there is no valet service, security guard, reception desk, information desk, waiting room, ER entrance, or admitting desk, we just walked in and a doctor who was walking by asked Fr. Ravi if we needed anything. It pays to have connections here in India and since it was a Catholic hospital, I had the best credentials of all: I was introduced as the Bishop's "benefactor". Fr. Ravi knows how to play hard ball. I was whisked into a room.

The doctor took my vitals and then asked me my symptons. I gave him the top 10 symptoms for malaria as cited by Wed.MD.com version 4.0 in order, verbatim.
"Headache?" the doctor countered.
"yes." I replied.
"No womiting?", he doubled checked.
"Womiting?"I asked.
"Yes, womiting." he assured me.
The light bulb went on. "OH! You mean, womiting, with a V. No, but that's a distinct possibility."
He felt this was conclusive.

He immediately took out his prescription pad, clicked open his pen, stretched and officially announced it was heat stress.

"What?!" I politely inquired.
He ordered a shot of unknown substance, some pills unknown to western science, and three days of complete bed rest either at the Bishop's house or in the hospital.
"Can I have a teensy look at what's behind Door No.3?", I asked.
"No".
"OK, I'll take Door No. 1", I said.
Then he said, "And no ice cream. No "cool drinks" (aka pop in India).
"What! That's unAmerican!"
"You're in India." he said, rolling his eyes.

He left and the nurse came in with a 12 inch long syringe, make of 18 gauge steel that had no tip and was left over from the Crusades. It hurt. Fr. Ravi got the pills wrapped in the sterilized, state of the art, substance controlled, tamper-resistent old newspaper "envelope" which is also good for wrapping food here, I might add and we left. It's amazing what they use old newspapers for here but that's another blog.

Two mintues down the road, Bingo!, We added the dreaded womits to our list of symptoms. Since it was the Bishop's car, we made an emergency stop. When I was finished I got up from the open sewer in front of the house, help my head up and said with as much dignity as I could muster, "No autographs today" to the gathering crowd and I got back in the car.

Like I said, this is not going exactly according to plan. More details if I recover. For pictures, just google "post mortem cadavers". You'll get the picture of what I look like.