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Published: September 8th 2023
Issy wasn’t at all well for most of yesterday and she’s woken up feeling just as bad if not worse, which sucks for her. A cold‘s been circulating through the group, and it looks like it’s made its way through to my beloved. Her face and throat hurt, so she thinks she‘s also got sinusitis or tonsillitis. We’d heard that you could get antibiotics over the counter in Greece, but the hotel receptionist tells us that they shut off that little loophole a few years back. So it looks like we’re off to the island’s hospital. We saw this in the dark on the way here the other night, and were told that the Italians built it when they occupied Kalymnos during the Second World War. I hope someone‘s got around to updating it at some stage since.
We know that other members of the group with the bug have tested negative to COVID, but we’re told Issy will probably still need to do a RAT test before they’ll let her in the hospital's front door. I leave her sitting outside and head in in search of assistance. Perhaps unsurprisingly 100% of the signs are only in Greek. I ask
a random person lurking outside a room what I need to do to see a doctor. He leads me down a long corridor to a non-descript, roughly painted, dilapidated looking blue wooden door. It doesn’t have any signs on it, and if left to guess I would have said it was the cleaner’s cupboard. But no, he assures me, if we want to see a doctor I need to bring Issy here, knock and enter. Hmmm.
We do as instructed. Hmmm. What’s this? A man in a mask and gown, sitting behind a desk, with unfriendliness written in capital letters all over his face. We assume he’s the doctor, and he’s got half a dozen masked and gowned “assistants” standing around him seemingly waiting in obedient terror to do his every bidding. I try to talk to the Dr Unfriendly, but he clearly doesn’t speak any English. A translator is summoned, and she turns up in the form of a young gowned, masked nurse. The word COVID’s mentioned, looks of horror appear on everyone’s faces, and we’re immediately ushered out of the room, back down the corridor and out the front door again. Hmmmm. That wasn’t quite the warm welcome we were hoping for.
It seems if we want to be seen to, my beloved does indeed need to do a COVID test. So how do we arrange that? I stand hopefully outside a room just inside the front door, and a friendly young nurse soon appears. She sticks a probe up Issy’s nose and on into her brain and we wait for the result to appear. We don’t have to wait too long. Whaaat! Nooooo! It’s positive! We can’t come in now we’re told; another nurse will see us round at the back door. Hmmm.
Tom was telling me yesterday that he ended up in a Greek hospital for a few days about ten years ago after he fell off his motorbike and broke four ribs. He said the nursing was “non-existent“. He said he was one of the very few inpatients that the hospital even fed. If you had Greek friends or relatives they were expected to bring the food in for you. And if you needed simple wound dressings like band aids, again that wasn’t up to the hospital to provide; come on in friends and relatives. If they want to admit my beloved I think we might just make a beeline back to Oz.
We’re shown in the back door by another friendly young nurse. She’s wearing a mask and gown. I think I’d be wearing protective gear too if I had to work here, and that’s got nothing to do with the patients - broken windows, dirty floors, flies and insects streaming in through the open door, a stopped clock, dilapidated furniture, dog-eared photocopies of religious icons sticky taped to the walls … What was that I was saying before about hoping it had been updated since 1942? Anyway, our nurse is very nice. She takes Issy’s vitals, and they’re all good. And she offers to do blood tests which also come back good. In the meantime she decides I should probably do a COVID test too, just as a precaution. Noooooo!!!! I’m positive too. I had what I assumed was just a cold a couple of days ago, but it seems it too was the dreaded virus. So it’s paracetamol, vitamins, rest and isolation for us, and that’s probably the end as far as the art trip’s concerned. Aaaaarrrrrggggghhh!
But the upside of the whole hospital “experience”? A few years back I spent about as much time as we’ve been here this morning in the emergency department at the hospital in Banff in Canada, and got a bill for two thousand dollars. The bill this morning - well that would be a whole 29 Euro, including the blood tests. I guess you get what you pay for.
So we retreat to our isolation suite back at the hotel. Fortunately they do room service. I’m not entirely sure what the waiter thought when I explained to him from behind a mask that we were both sick, and that my wife would like a club sandwich …. washed down with a pina colada.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Sorry to hear you both got Covid...
your next blogs should be interesting as you discover what you are allowed to do. Get well soon!