A hospitals emergency ward

Eventually all travellers, even the ones that come to India for business, will end up with something, ranging from stomach cramps to some sort of infection. Most of them have diarrea in all sorts and shapes. We have been lucky so far (knock on wood) and have had only one day of cramps. But as hygiene levels are not very high standard, it is easy to get an eye or ear infection. India is dirty and there is no way around it. Unfortunately it is my turn to visit a doctor after having a funny feeling in my ear for quite some time. A quick inspection by michel showed some irregularities and we decide to head for a pharmacy. We explain the symptoms and are given eardrops and some cottonwool. When we ask how much it is, the man tells its for free! But the drops don’t work and the pain gets worse. So bad that we decide to visit a hospital the next day on the way to Agra. The huge complex looks better then we expected after hearing horrorstories about foreign Hospitals.

We park the car, take a deep breath and enter the complex. But it’s 200 percent better then we expected. Clean and well organised! As it is already late we are sent to the emergency ward. When we arrive there we don’t have to wait and are asked to walk further. The emergency ward looks clean but is quite a chaos. Privacy is not known here and we see a man bleeding after what looks like a road accident. A bit startled we stand in the door opening and have no idea who to approach. Within a minute a nurse comes up and points to a bed. We sit down and look at the chaos. A man on the bed next to us is asked to relax while receiving a 30 cm tube in his nose. We decide not to look. Then the doctor arrives and ask us about the problem. We explain the symptoms and he ask us to wait for a second. Then he comes back with a 1.99 dollar torch. The cheap one you buy in a supermarket and starts to examine the eye! He concludes that there might be an infection and suggests an antibiotic course for 3 days. He asks us to wait a bit so he can determine the medicines need. In the meantime our bed is used by some nurses. Several jars with poo samples of a men from a few beds further are examined and with the help of a multiple choice question they try to figure out if the guy is sick. Yes he is…. by the looks of his shit.. you don’t need to be docter for that. We are happy to leave the ward and get the prescribed medicines. Total costs for the consult and medicines, 3.99 dollar!