The evening before I could tell I was heading towards an "eye of a needle" situation. I had it last year in Antigua and ended up on a drip. I thought it best to intervene early to prevent having to spend the entire flight on Friday in some horrible British Airways toilet. Luckily, Jennifer found out from the hotel reception that there was a hospital with a dispensary just around the corner and she was brave enough to take a walk over there.
She spoke to the drug wallah through a small hatch in the wall, but he wouldn't give her any antibiotics without a doctor seeing me first. He did however give her some cartons of apple juice as an interim measure. After her return I thought I should really brave the doctor and so headed off to the aforementioned hospital.
A strange place. On entering you feel like you are going to leave with more diseases than you arrived with. An old 1970's style building - not exactly clean, and no soap in the toilets. I was directed to room 4 and was seen within 10 minutes or so by a female doctor in a saree who looked more like someone's Mother than a doctor. She was perfectly pleasant and sorted me out with a prescription of a cocktail of drugs. The fee? It was £3.25 for her and £1.50 for the tablets.
By this time Jennifer had followed me around to the hospital and we walked the short distance back to the hotel. This is where things got worse. You think it would be a simple task to walk through the revolving door of the hotel. Not so. These things seem to have a mind of their own, coupled with some sharp metal edges. As I went through the door with Jennifer behind me there was a bang and the door stopped. I looked around and the bottom of the door had hit Jennifer on the foot. She was wearing open sandals and the door had sliced into her big toe. As she walked into the reception blood was pouring out everywhere, making a stark contrast with the beautiful white marbled flooring.
There was some degree of chaos from the reception staff. I could tell right away that it needed stitches. I got some dressings from the staff and bandaged it up. So it was back to the hospital again. Thirty minutes, five stitches and £20 later Jennifer was walking out of the hospital with her big comedy toe poking out from the front of one of my sandals.
The British NHS could learn a thing or two from this efficient and inexpensive Indian system.
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