Onward
I purchased a ticket to BKK the other day and will be arriving in Thailand Monday morning. I sent an email to Dr. Jim noting my last week of work and received a nice and terse as usual reply. As I hate goodbyes, I have been telling only a few people at work that I was leaving this week.
On Monday night, Ath invited me to his home for dinner. I expected to eat with everyone in the house, but as usual, it was just Ath and me who ate. His wife quietly sat nearby with the youngest baby while the 2 year old tried to kick a soccer ball onto our plates. The two other people there also just sat out of the way. After eating Ath drove me to the mall near my place with his 2 year old standing in between us on the motorbike. I remember saying to my self, “I’m not OK with this.” They both seemed to really enjoy it and it appeared that they did that often before bedtime.
As it were, I’m having a pretty busy week. I’ve got three hand patients who formerly went to Calmet Hospital for various hand injuries. All of them got sewn back up and sent home. Now three months later x-rays show that their hands are still fractured and they are stiff and contracted. And today another one showed up with electrical burns to both wrists, adhesions of the flexor tendons at both wrists, and contracting fingers. He also went to Calmet three months ago right after the injury and after a couple of weeks there and three surgeries of which he did not know what was done, was sent home without further instructions. I’ll remind you that my aunt is there now getting “treatment” for her Lupus.
Prior to dining with Ath I did go visit my aunt. My uncle said they were going to keep her at this hospital “until she was cured.” I think she may well die here. She had been getting better and is now, finally on a steroid. But today she is having severe abdominal pains and I found out that she had not been eating anything this whole time except runny rice soup. The hospital itself has not given her any liquid foods or any advice at all. No one seems to know what she’s being given or why and no one is asking but me. This is supposedly one of the better hospitals in Cambodia. And from what I’ve seen, I could do a better job with internet access and a willingness to learn. As mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook, coming here without medical evacuation insurance would be suicidal.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:39 am
dont get hurt or youll end up in a volunteer hospital :-0
March 4th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
No that’s where you would want to end up if you have to get treatment in country. It’s the government hospitals that are incompetent. When you see people forking over money directly to the nurses and doctors and the ones who don’t have any get kicked out no matter what that the shear magnitude of corruption and lack of caring becomes evident.