Hospital Visit

Due to the fact that I am living in a communist country, I am not allowed to say anything bad about the country, government, etc in public or on any social media sites.  I have signed a contract agreeing to that so I will try to spin everything in this entry in a positive way...

Yesterday we spent the day at the St. Paul's Public Hospital in Hanoi getting all of our medical tests and papers signed for our work permits.  It was my first moment of culture shock walking through that hospital compound.  I realize now I had been completely spoiled with the hospitals and medical care in Thailand and also with the bits of English that a lot of people spoke where I last lived.  I was literally about to have an anxiety attack sitting in the hospital yesterday thinking about all the times that I had to go to the hospital in Thailand and praying that I wouldn't get sick like that again and would never have to see the insides of this hospital again.  I guess what scared me the most is that nothing was written in English, no one spoke English and I'm a spoiled American and am used to clean and organized medical facilities.  I put my iPod in and listened to some soothing music to stay chilled out while I waited to pee in a cup, get my blood draw, see the dentist (and have him put the same tools in my mouth as he used on my friend Lauren before me), see the ENT, see two different eye doctors, get an x-ray on my chest (I won't even begin to discuss what the x-ray department looked like), see the regular physician, and have our papers signed by at least 10 different people.  All the while, I saw a whole lot of sick people wandering the halls, a lady with a Dumbledore hand, and a man who may or may not have been dead coming in from what looked like a motorbike accident and Lauren and I had to squeeze up against a wall while he was wheeled past.  It was so much easier in Thailand where I just had to go to doctor's office that my school recommended and pay them $3.25 to sign off on my medical papers for my work permit saying I had all of my tests done.  At least the system seems to be pretty legit here...

(One of my friends just put a video up of our visit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RnobFCU1J2M )

I may or may not have mentioned before that Vietnamese people don't like to wait and have zero patience.  This carried over very clearly into the hospital as people just wandered around trying to find doctors to serve them or walked in on other people's appointments and just stood there waiting to be served.  There was no rhyme or reason to anything that I could see and it was totally bizarre to me.  Can you imagine just walking into an appointment room whenever you felt like and shoving papers in the doctor's face in order to get a turn with them?  I guess it's good that I went with a Vietnamese woman this first time who came to help us so I know how it works because if I just went by myself for the first time, I would literally be waiting for hours to be called and would never actually get called. 

I know the hospitals could be much much much worse and I'm very lucky that this hospital has good resources but I left there never wanting to get on my motorbike again in fear that I would end up in the hospital to get treated if/when I get in an accident.  I made my whole group promise each other that no one would ever let another person go there alone and hopefully no one gets sick or anything for the entire year!  Wishful thinking I know...