Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I've spent the last three days in the hospital. I got sent to the emergency room at 6am in the morning after I've developed an extremely stomach pain which kept me up all night, however, once I arrived they wheeled me in straight away and put me on the drip then left me. I had no interpreter present nor my team leader (she arrived few moment later), I had my co ordinator and my youth project supervisor with me who is Filipinos and doesn't sign British sign language so you could imagine how frustrated I was but somehow I managed to communicate by hand gesture on what's my problem is. Pain was unbearable I was distressed and couldn't focus on what doctor was asking nor understand the Filipino sign language and I was given extremely strong painkiller which made me quite drowsy and seeing everything in two ( you could imagine how hard it was to communicate when I needed visual communication to communicate!), everyone was talking at once and kept bothering me so I started to panic and had a small panic attack so my team leader had to stop everything and allow me to calm myself. I decided to wait for my BSL interpreter to arrive to continue. Before he arrived I had to be sent to have my chest X-ray to rule out any pneumonia cos of my symptoms, obviously I was frustrated cos I still didn't get any interpreter to translate, the doctor was talking to staff instead of me, and I didn't know what was going on although my team leader was brilliant she tried her best to translate as everything as she could to keep me update. Finally my bsl interpreter arrived and the whole procedure continued- I was told I might have gallbladder stone and may require an operation. Operation!? I wasn't sure to laugh or cry so was told I need to stay overnight for further test. Further tests wasn't able to process, I didn't get sent to my private room or be able to continue my treatment til 11pm at night. Why? That's cos my insurance hasn't come through and doctor aren't willing to treat anybody til they pay first, it is always about money! we got told that they will have to start charge us per hour til the payment from insurance come through to continue the whole procedure. No matter how bad situation is or how emergency it is; they will want money first. On my medical form there is two tick boxes of two answers from a question; "full code" or "natural death", It up to filipinos whether if they want to be saved from death or for nurses to leave it, depends if they can afford for the fee. You could imagine how scared I was to be in a foreign hospital with the foreign nurses, doctors and people who I met 7 weeks ago! However, my friend stayed with me for company and she could see how frustrated I was so she spoken to her host family about this, here is whole conversation what had been said; they said it happens a lot. It's normal. People die because they have no money.
"A lot of people get frustrated because doctors are not giving them treatment due to the lack of money, so a member of the family usually goes home, gets a gun, and threatens to kill the doctor."
I thought he was joking at first.
"No I'm serious. A lot of doctors die from that."
Now , I'm so grateful for the uk government to use our tax payers to pay things towards to NHS whereas in the Philippines people have to work hard for money to pay for their hospital fee if needed; a lot of hospital fee are above their average wage. I can't describe how poor Philippines is so yeah a lot of people dies everyday because they can't afford for the treatment. People in the uk uses up NHS and complains constantly need to wake up and appreciate the service a lot more! Maybe you don't understand what it is like for people in the Philippines because you haven't seen or experience for yourself but I have, Everything in the Philippines are so complicated, and everything are so corrupt with the government. I'll tell you again, appreciate everything what you've got!
However, I'm out now and on the road to recovery! I was diagnosed with stomach ulcer so I'll be on restricted diet now from on til I'm back to the uk.
5 weeks to go :-)
- comments
liz tory glad u on th mend hun.xxxx
bullz Crikey, scary to read all that! But glad you on your way to recovery! Take easy leanne xx
Kev stead I've never been more frustrated in my life knowing what you were going through and being thousands of miles away and not being able to help. Take it easy for next couple of days and then get back into your placement and try to make a difference, no matter how all