We needed to go to the clinic this morning at 8am.
Since it was a Sunday, the free clinic for Burmese was closed. This left us the option to go to the public hospital, where it would cost us $3-$6 in treatment and a day or two of our lives. Or we could go to a clinic in town, one in particular where the doctor speaks Burmese, and pay $5-$10 and wait about 20 minutes.
We chose the clinic for what I feel like are obvious reasons. {It might be noted, too, that depending on the department and staff on duty at the public hospital, you might literally watch them flip through the stack, choose the Burmese patients and place them at the bottom. This is utterly discouraging to the soul and destroys the hope of the process moving quickly.}
This is how our clinic visit went today.
8:00am. We are signed in to the clinic and second in line. We sit down and pull out some keys for the baby to play with. It is already nearing 100 degrees.
8:15am. I note the doctors hours posted on the wall. He works today from 7:30am to 3:00pm, then again from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. I take a moment to feel sorry for the Thai doctors, who are required to work at the public hospital, but often also work at a private hospital and have their own clinic, so that most work from 7am to 8pm or so, seven days a week.
I then note that we are waiting on the doctor because he isn’t there yet and feel slightly less sorry for him. I assume he will come by 8:30.
9:00am. No one has been called yet, so being second in line isn’t helping us as much as I’d hoped. This is also three times as long as any other time I’ve been in the clinic. The doctor has still not arrived, so my second hope of him arriving at 9 is unlikely.
9:20am. The family I am with asks when the doctor will arrive. The nurse calmly replies 11am.
Much TOO CALMLY. You open at 7:30am for the doctor to arrive 3.5 hours later?! All the frustrations.
9:21am. We reconfirm that we all understand the ridiculousness that is occurring. I apologize and suggest we go home and perhaps come back this afternoon when it is less busy, and uh, the doctor is here.
2:00pm. We arrive back at the doctors office. They ask our name as if they don’t remember us. I am not fooled.
2:01pm. We see the doctor.
2:05pm. They receive medicine and we pay $5. I tell them that is more what I was expecting this morning and that I’m sorry.
2:10pm. We are back in the car. It is steaming hot and the pleather seats are hot, hot, hot. The mother is unsure how to sit on them, so she empties the contents of her purse and sits on it. Not on the purse, mind you, but the bottle, diaper, baby powder, medicine bottles–the actual contents of her purse.
I’m not sure about that one, but we drive home anyway.
Leave a Reply