Adventures in Hungarian medicine

Before I start the story, let me say that the point of this post is how nearly impossible it is to do anything complicated when you don't speak the language. Case in point: A trip to the emergency room.

I really thought I had appendicitis. I gutted it out (so to speak) for most of the day, and then finally called the clinic recommended by the State Department and the Fullbright folks. The English-speaking doctor on call said I should go to the hospital, and recommended one that he thought would be best. So off we went in a taxi. So far so good.

We get to the entrance to the hospital, and it is totally unclear where the ER is. When we think we've found it, there's a gate with a guard in a booth. So OLGS finally persuades the driver to go ask at the booth to be let in. Amazingly, we are and we drive off to the entrance, or what we think is the entrance.

We are right about the entrance, so we enter the ER waiting area and go to registration. We are waved off to somewhere else, but when we get to the somewhere else, it is totally unclear where we are. OLGS goes back to the registration area, and the clerk, showing only a little scorn for the stupid Americans, finally walks him back to where she had sent us in the first place. Apparently, this is triage, although whether it said anything about that I don't know.

After a short wait, a young woman in a polo shirt, jeans and a stethoscope pops her head out of a door, and indicates that we are next. In I go, along with OLGS as my translator. Then the problems really begin.

In addition to the young woman with the stethoscope, there is an older woman with what looks very suspiciously like a ledger. After showing our State Department-issued health insurance card, we are told that it is no good and that we will need to pay in advance. How much, we ask? 100 euros, we are told.

OLGS yanks out his credit card, brought along for exactly this eventuality. We don't take credit cards, he is told. Cash? We have exactly enough in Hungarian money (not Euros) to pay the cab back and the $15 co-pay that the insurance card says we will need to pay at an ER visit. Of course, the card is in English, and I suspect the concept of co-pay is foreign to them.

Now the lady with the ledger picks up her phone. OLGS understands enough to know that she's saying that there are some Americans who cannot pay and what should I do? Fortunately, the woman with the polo shirt and stethoscope says, in broken English, "Why don't I examine you anyway. We'll deal with this later." I was quite ready to kiss her, as the pain was getting worse from the stress.

So she examines me, asks all the right questions, with OLGS helping. She says that she is pretty sure I don't have appendicitis but that I should go see a surgeon. Surgeon??? She fills out several forms, stamps them repeatedly, and sends us back to registration, where we deal with more skepticism about the insurance card, and ultimately fill out a form in English that I think committed us to giving them our firstborn child.

We were going to leave after that -- I decided that since I didn't have appendicitis, I could deal with it the following day at the English-language clinic where they understand the concept of the State Department. However, a woman in scrubs rushed out as we were ready to leave and marched us into an examining room.

She spoke no English, but did a great demo of vomiting. OLGS finally told her that we wanted to go, and she agreed, after telling me that I should see a surgeon. That made me even more anxious to leave, so OLGS called the cab company, which promised to be there in 10 minutes. It was, and we walked back to the gate, since the driver did not argue with the guard about driving to the entrance.

When we got back to our flat, I went to bed, and although it was hard to get comfortable, I finally fell asleep and felt somewhat better in the morning. During the day I continued to feel better, so I never called the English-language clinic.

Lessons learned: Stick with English speakers for medicine -- OLGS is not advanced enough to do this in Hungarian. The basic humanity of the woman in the polo shirt -- a PA or intern -- who was going to examine me whether or not the payment issues were resolved. We were a charity case. And the meaning of surgeon: Physician -- similar to the Brits calling a doctor's office a surgery. And I'm more or less back to normal two days later. Food poisoning? Indigestion? Who knows. We didn't understand.