Day 21 - Nightmare Nurses and the Harrowing Hospital

I just had one of those experiences that makes a great story, but is really a once in a lifetime deal.  If I ever end up in a similar situation again, I probably won't survive it.

I just survived a third world hospital.  The whole experience was a series of mistakes and confusion by a lot of different people.

I am still suffering from my cold (or whatever it is) from Malaysia and I wanted some decongestants.  Flying with ears that won't adjust is painful (and actually dangerous I learned).  I had bought some in Penang, but only had one dose left.  I doubted the Mumbai airport was going to have any, so I needed to buy some here.

I went to a convenience store and looked for something containing pseudoephedrine.  I couldn't find any.  When I asked the clerk, she told me to go to a pharmacy.  I asked around on the street for a pharmacy and found a small place selling lots of vitamins.  She told me to go to a place called Watson's.  Watson's is sort of like Walgreen's back home.  There is an actual pharmacist and they take prescriptions.  I asked the pharmacist for some pseudoephedrine and she told me that it is not sold over the counter in Thailand.  It can only be sold from a hospital.

I had time to kill before my flight, so I figured it was worth a trip to the hospital pharmacy to get some pseudoephedrine.  I asked where the nearest hospital was and she scrawled something in Thai onto a piece of paper.  I took the piece of paper with me onto the street and asked random bystanders which direction to go.  Every five or six blocks, I would stop and point to the paper.  After an hour or so of walking, I found the address.  It didn't look like any hospital I had ever seen and there were no red crosses.  In fact, I never would have guessed it was a hospital.  What hospital has no doors?  What hospital has stray animals laying outside?

I went inside and the circus began.  There was absolutely no English anywhere, but there were signs with symbols.  I wandered around looking for the "i" sign while everyone stared at me.  I was in some sort of medical office building because people were wearing funny hats.  I found the "i", but they didn't speak English.  I pointed to the Malaysian medicine and the word "pseudoephedrine" and a lightbulb went off, or so it seemed.

She walked me to an area with a bunch of counters and asked for my passport.  I handed it to her and after 15 minutes, she came back with a card for me.



Well, it has my name...and some other stuff.

Then she led me to a seating area and told me to wait.  I was hoping the card was to track me (to prevent drug dealing) and this was the pharmacy area.  Nope.



Are you here for a prescription?

This was just a holding area.  The information lady came back for me and took me to a room full of people.  However, there was something wrong with this room.  Everyone in the room looked seriously ill.  I figured I must have been put in the wrong room with cancer patients, so I went outside to a desk.



The desk with the funny hat people.

 The funny hat people spoke no English and ushered me back into the scary room when I showed them my card.  The woman next to me coughed so much that I am sure I now have whatever she had.  A few people had serious skin disorders.  I did notice that one by one, people were called behind the glass where they had measurements taken for weight, height, blood pressure, and temperature.

Pretty soon it became obvious that this was a line for a doctor.  Apparently pseudoephedrine is a controlled substance and I needed a prescription!  I also figured out that Thai people don't go to a hospital unless something is very wrong.  That explained why I was the only healthy looking patient around.

I was pretty scared to touch anything in the waiting room and afraid to get near any of the patients with coughing, wheezing, or skin disorders.  The people in wheelchairs with lots of blankets on seemed the safest bets.

After watching 15 or 20 people go through the line, I knew that this was going to take forever.  I started plotting an escape because I was more unnerved with each passing moment.  The staff doesn't speak English, so what will I say?  Will a patient infect me with ebola?  Are the medical devices sterilized here?  Are these people certified to practice medicine?  What if the medicine is contaminated?

I decided stuffy ears were OK with me.  I couldn't go back out the door I came in without being seen, so I asked for a toilet.  I was given some crazy directions in Thai and used the opportunity to wander through a ton of hallways in the medical building.  I passed an X-Ray area and a room that said MRI on it.  I finally found a stairwell and took it to the bottom.  Then I left through an emergency exit.  No alarm sounded and I walked very quickly down the street to get lost in the market before someone came looking for me.

My escape was complete!