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Monday 26 January 2009

Gastroenteritis – Portugal

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I spent this New Year in Portugal with my girlfriend and her family. Its normally great fun and I get to eat a lot of varied food (the Portuguese definitely know how to eat). This year it was a bit different as on the 2nd I started to feel quite ill. Not quite ill, very ill. It was quite late and I had a horrible headache and started to feel generally bad with the occasional urge to go to the toilet. I thought it might be a recurrence of Flu that I had had before Christmas at the time so I asked for the thermometer. We measured it to be 38.8°C and then both my girlfriend and her Mum began to go slightly mental. Before I knew it I was in bed with about 5 or 6 sheets over me, a flannel on my head and 2 very worried women hovering around me with some paracetamol. By the morning I was having more than just the urge to use the toilet, a pain in my abdomen was occurring quite a lot and especially before I needed to use the toilet. This carried on getting worse during most of the 3rd and by the evening we decided that I should see a doctor as my flight was in the morning. We went to a local private hospital as by now is was after 11pm and was seen very quickly by a doctor. He actually touched my abdomen! You’ll realise why this was a surprise as the story unfolds.

He then directed me to the normal hospital with a note as he thought it might be appendicitis. I showed them my passport, they checked it, and sent me on my way without a bill. I then turned up at the hospital and waited, and waited, and waited some more before seeing a nurse. She read the note, gave me and my girlfriend an armband (to be my translator) and sent me back to the waiting area. We waited and waited and was then called through to another waiting room, where we waited some more. My girlfriend was quite rudely told she couldn't go with me until she showed the guard her armband. It wouldn't have taken too much decency to ask her first before being rude, GRR. Hours must have passed by now and my stomach wasn’t getting any better. I then saw another doctor who read the note without examining me, and then sent me off for a urine and blood test and to see a surgeon. The lady who took my blood test looked like she had the bubonic plague and proceeded to be snotty while drawing blood. She seemed even more chaotic than she was ill as she didn’t seem to know who was next and kept popping her head out of the door to see if anyone else was waiting. This is where it gets even more humorous, in hindsight of course. I was called in to see the surgeon who just stood there looking at me. After a pause and a bit of a stupid look, he then read the same note we’d been given by the first doctor. He quite rudely or weirdly got me to lay-down while he prodded me, almost looking annoyed that I was bothering him. I’m not surprised as before he called me in, he was sitting in his room chatting to another doctor for at least 30 minutes. He came to the conclusion that I was OK and sent me on my way to wait around again before I was seen by yet another doctor. She looked over my blood test, not examining me, and then said I must have gastroenteritis and that I would be OK in a couple of days. By this time it was about 5am and in this time I had spoken to my travel insurance company more than the doctors.

The next part of the story is partially my fault as I was stupid not to get an E111 card before I travelled. No problem I thought though as I had travel insurance, and after the experience at the private hospital I thought it would be no problem. How wrong could I be. They wanted to charge me €120 as I didn’t have the E111 card. I called the insurance company and they said no problem, the hospital can fax the bill over and then they will fax back a guarantee to pay it. When I asked the guy behind the counter you would have thought I had asked him to loan me the money, pay for a taxi back and also give him a slap on the face. The answer was no, they couldn’t fax anything and I would have to pay. OK I thought, oh well, I’ll pay by credit card. Wrong! Of course they don’t accept MasterCard, Visa or Amex. So the guy comes with me to a cash machine in the hospital to get the cash, which I do. The machine doesn’t give me a receipt of course, one more thing to go wrong…

We eventually get back to the house at about 6am, not feeling any better but now thoroughly knackered. For anyone that thought the UK health service was crap, I think this was just as bad.

2 comments:

Ines said...

It was horrible and as much as it sucked going to hospital, we needed to make sure it wasn't appendicitis. I just wish they could have found out sooner. And I still can't believe a passport is not enough to show you are entitled to free treatment in the EU. Sure you should have the card but deny you free treatment just because of a stupid number? Un-freaking-believable!

Kangas said...

Disgusting!

The only word I can say about what I just read is disgusting! Pathetic!

In that country people are treated like merchandise! They don't care if you are a human being who supposedly have exactly the same rights as they do. Because in that country having a medicine degree gives you the status of almost a GOD!

They are bad professionals, they are extremely rude and they don't care about the patients. How pathetic that those idiots don't give free assistance to a British citizen after the passport was shown! You are a European Citizen, they should be sue for denying you assistance.

About the long talk between doctors while you were waiting in excruciating pain, that's another thing that is part of being a doctor in that country. You are the one who needs them (and pay their salary too) so they are above you, because they think they are superior to you, making you wait is part of their pathetic behaviour. I'm really upset by reading what happen to you. People like this should be given a reality check!

I hope you are better now and that you will never need to go to such type of hospital anymore.

Regards

Kangas