Hospital

Buenos Aires - Cordoba

My travel insurance representative, a friendly guy named Todd, recommended that I go to the Hospital Privado during my brief stay in Cordoba, just to make sure I didn´t have the H1N1. Based on the extradordinarily high fever that I had had on Saturday, and the pain in the kidneys that might be the result of an alcohol-induced infection, I decided take a trip.

Leaving Josh to discover the city´s pretty cathedrals and cafes, I took a cheap cab into the suburbs. Todd had told me to go the ER for direct care. After walking in the hospital, I realized that I had no idea how to say "Emergency Room", nor "insurance", "kidney infection", or a host of other medical terms. I walked in a daze past throngs of unhappy Argentines looking for care, just like any hospital or clinic. Unlike, any hospital in the U.S. or Europe, however, this place had pealing paint, dust all over the floor, and dingy lights. The Argentine hospital brand of unhappy patient has an extra dose of angry.

I´ll spare you the details of the many conversations I had leading to my seeing a doctor, but let´s just say they involved several receptionists who simply made me panic due to their total unwillingness to slow down. I believe I was told by one woman that I would be "faxed to the emergency guard," to which I believe I responded "ok, but my company man said that I´m worth 100 percent." While this was happening, an angry youth stood to my side, tapping the glass of the reception window menancingly with a splint on his fingers. It´s times like this that I reach in my pocket and make sure my passport is still there.

Once I eventually reached the ER, and determined that these people simply wouldn´t accept my insurance, I was given a mask and told to pay at another counter and then wait. And so I did. The humiliation of waiting for a doctor in a mask is not so intense if you´re one of many masked invalids. If you´re the only person in an entire hospital wearing a mask, the world looks at you like you´re scum on Earth. I had several people make quite clear to me that the seat next to them was occupied, although clearly nobody was sitting there. Even standing, old ladies slunked away from me and children stared menacingly. I eventually realized that despite the constant coughing that I had heard in the hostel, on the street, in buses, on subways, I was the only one in this country who had admitted that he had the flu.

This became even more apparent once I was finally admitted. Doctors and nurses communicated with me by just putting their head through the door. Those who did come all the way into the room were covered from hand to foot in garb, like I was an alien in the movie Independence Day. "Dr. Frank", my principal doctor, asked me a billion questions, as did an authoritative "infectologist" who simply told me upon entering the room "Don´t be afraid."

Swine flu, or "N1H1" as they call it here, is tested and taken seriously not based on symptoms (as these are too similar to the regular flu), but based on a number of factors about the patients recent past. Because I had been in New York, they decided to do a number of tests on me. Of course, I was not made aware of this decision. Things just started happening to me. A girl came in, opened a needle out of a package (yes, I made sure it was packaged like in America), and took some blood. Then, even while I was still bleeding and bandaging myself(!), I was ushered back into the reception room where the same people who had given me dirty looks now saw me in a lot more garb, and out again into a room where I was shoved into what looked like a giant dart board (this turned out to be an X-Ray). I was then told to wait in my original room. This lasted forever. The janitor, who didn´t realize that I was a biotoxic hazzard, even came in and started mopping around my feet before a nurse came in and grabbed him, pulling him out and smiling nervously at me before slamming the door. Finally, a guy came in to get a swab of my nose and throat, and I was told that I could pay for the x-ray and blood work and leave after they got the results from the tests.

About an hour later, I was told that I did not have anything other than a flu. Unfortunately, they didn´t know what flu I had. My swab samples had been sent to the Ministry of Health to be analyzed, and I would receive notification in a few days telling me whether or not I had the swine flu. In the meantime, they asked for my phone number and place of lodging so that they could check up on me. I was told not to leave Cordoba, as I could get others sick on the bus. I left 4 hours after I arrived, dazed, a little nervous, and still wearing my mask. Needless to say, I had a hard time getting a cab.

Now, if you were to ask me, "Dylan, are hospitals in Argentina as nice as those in America?", my answer would be "No." But I did get an ER visit, blood work, and an x-ray for $15.

Epilogue
2 days later, Josh and I have exhausted what to do in Cordoba. We are making a break for Mendoza tonight, whatever the authorities say. If you don´t hear from me, it means we´ve been quarantined by the Argentine Ministry of Health.

Haha, actually, it´s not that adventurous. The doctors have called daily, but I have been feeling a lot better and they agreed that I could leave today. We all agree that I probably don´t have the swine flu, and if I did, it´s a wussy flu. In a few days I´ll be drinking wine in the sunshine and smoking a big, fat cuban cigar.

Extras:

Cordoba is pretty, if not beautiful. This is a burned up Cathedral.

The Argentine authorities have been notorious in their time for detainment. This is a cell for political prisoners during the pre-Falkland War period. Some things just don´t change.

This sunny spot was not an awful place to recover from the swine flu!