Hospital de Hillary

Today is the day! I have asked Kevin to take me to the hospital. He has selected the Hospital Municipal Juan Fernandez but I hope you won’t mind me just referring to it as Hospital de Hillary.

We met at 9AM in the entrance courtyard. It would have been impossible to meet inside as the minute you stepped inside the door the crowd was overwhelming. We proceeded through a maze of hallways to a little window downstairs somewhat removed from the crush of humanity. The lady behind the window told Kevin that we need to go upstairs by the entrance and get a number. So back upstairs we go into wall to wall people ailing from who knows what. Already I am feeling better cause if we stay here too much longer I will probably come down with something much more serious. We stand in line for window number one at which point my new friend who I met outside while waiting for Kevin maneuvers in to help.

Let me digress. I am sitting on the bench just inside the gate to the hospital waiting for Kevin when this lady across the path asks in her best spanglish where I am from. She is wearing very tight cloths and for an instant I hear the word prostitute in the back to my head. Very strange. I have never been propositioned in a hospital before and thought this was a weird place to work her trade. Before I knew it she moved over beside me and was asking questions much beyond my limited comprehension. Kevin shows up just in the nick of time and gives me this look like “what the hell you doing.” He is nice enough to my new found friend but firmly moves me to the inside of the building where he informs me that she is a he. End of digression.

She is very good at working the system and moves us over two window number four. You see you start at window four, where they input your info and then move to window one where the printer is located. It takes about 10 minutes for the electrons to move from window four to window one where we were able to push and shove our way through the crowd between windows in about 15 seconds. Don’t ask why or where that data went in those 10 minutes. And if it wasn’t for my new girlfriend we would still be waiting for our invaluable print-out. This piece of paper gave us the time and doctors room number that we were to see. 11:45 in room 13. Not that I am superstitious but I don’t have a good feeling about this. And it is only 9:30. The cough is defiantly getting better.

We (just Kevin and me…crestfallen girlfriend remains) adjourn to the nearest coffee shop where we discuss our options, talk about Kevin’s previous life in Iowa, and politics.
Fast forward two hours and we are back in the den of illness looking for room 13. Is it possible that there are even more people in this place now. We stand outside room 13 with about 200 others hopefully not waiting for the same doc. Someone knocks on door 12 hoping the doctor there is not too busy. Finally door 13 opens and the doctor sees out an elderly lady. Immediately about 15 people push and shove their way toward door 13 trying to be the first one in. The doctor calmly slips into the room and closes the door with apparently no one inside but her. 15 minutes later she opens the door and calls for Rosa Gonzales. Rosa must have passed away because she does not respond. However the 15 eager beavers are there willing to take her place. The doc calls another name and this person arises from a chair across the hall and follows the doc into the room. The group of 15 is not happy.

In 15 minutes or so the doc releases the patent and goes back into the room alone. I get a good look into the exam room and there is no other door. I thought that maybe the doc needed to pee or something during the 15 she was alone. Maybe she has a coffee can under the exam table.

The doc repeats her previous routine and Rosa is still persona non presenta so the next lucky person goes in. At this point it is 12:30, a good 45 minutes past my appointment time and no end in sight. The group of 15 have obviously been there longer than I have…maybe overnight. I turn to Kevin and told him my sore throat is all better now. I felt bad that we had wasted all morning but I wanted to cut our losses and not waste all afternoon too. And the cough was in fact getting better.

So we left. I told Kevin that he needed to work on plan B because if I ever needed to see a doctor while in BA, I did not want to come back to this place. He said there were some private hospitals that my school insurance would pay for. So what the hell did we waste half a day in the Hillary hospital for?

I am glad the wine is cheap here. Tonight is a two bottler.

Buenos noches

Danny

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