Hospitals

I apologize for not updating this blog for the last couple days, but I've been ill...stomach flu!  Super.  There are some good points and some bad points about being ill in Turkey so I thought I would share them with you today from my sickbed.  Let's start with the good!

Now, let me preface this by saying that I am generally not ill enough to go to the hospital.  In fact, I hate hospitals!  I hate the smell and the white sterility of them.  I hate the feeling of sickness you get when you walk into them...So you could say I already have a preconceived dislike of hospitals.  On Thursday when I woke up ill, I adamately resisted going.  Finally, after several hours of argument, at 11pm, my boyfriend insisted and off we went to the Akay Özel Hastane Emergency department.

I was having visions of Canadian clinics and emerg centres, visions of 6 hour waits and overworked doctors who give cursory exams and scribbled off prescriptions...I was quite pleasantly surprised however - there was absolutely no wait!  We walked in, were greeted by the receptionist and told to go straight away to a little cubicle.  A nurse came right away and did all the normal tests, took my medical history and then called the doctor. When the doctor came he reconfirmed my history and my symptoms and then did more tests.  I had some xrays done and then received my prescription.  All of this was efficiently and pleasantly done.  I was pretty shocked at just how quickly we were in and out!  Also, I want to point out that the hospital was modern and bright (not white and sterile) and had a lemony fresh smell.  There wasn't the smell of sickness in the air when we walked in.  A refreshing surprise indeed!  Maybe I should also point out that there are hospitals on most every street corner - think of them as the Tim Horten's of health care!

On Friday night, when I went for the second time, it was about 7pm and I was expecting a busy after-work rush in Emergency. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a repeat of the first night - there was no wait again!  It was great!  I was quite feverish (40C) when we arrived so they started an IV and gave me some fever reducers right away.  I had one doctor and one nurse checking on my every 10 minutes.  My wonderfully attentive doctor was from Iran and was rather funny - he put me at ease with his bedside manner, joking with me every time he came by to check on me.  

These two hospital experiences have kind of swayed my opinion of hospitals...kind of!!  I almost don't dread having to go again here...

Today, I am feeling marginally better - no fever!  Yay!  And I was just lying here reflecting on the difference between our health care systems...Here in Turkey, every service you receive you must pay for.  Luckily, I am provided with health care through my work place so I didn't have to pay for these visits.  But for those who are not so lucky - health care is expensive!  If I added up all the services I had over the two nights I was in hospital, I would have had to pay about 1000tl.  That's alot of money when the average Turk makes only about 1200-1800tl per month.  Unfortunately, there is no public health care here.  If you have no private insurance, you're stuck with the bill...and that could get pricey.  Which is the bad part about health care here.

So, if you're lucky enough to have private insurance, and pretty much every English school and most other educational institutions do provide their teachers with insurance, then the health care is top notch!  If you're one of the unlucky ones who have no insurance, at least you don't have multiple hour waits in clinics and emergency rooms...catch 22??