Unplanned Hospital Tour

A planned beach day turned into an unplanned hospital day. Fortunately, I wasn't the ill party around here.

One of my friends here has battled hemorrhoids for years, and today the immune system decided to kick into overdrive. Fever, vomiting, and all of that good stuff was not exactly what I signed up for this morning, but a trip to the hospital was interesting in its own way.

Another friend and I decided to make the trip to the hospital and provide some moral support. For some reason I thought the hospital would be so much cooler than it was. But then again, when have hospitals ever been cool? I think I supposed it would be different. Different how? I'm not exactly sure. Turns out, a hospital is basically a hospital.

In Brasil, the healthcare system extends coverage to everyone through public hospitals, but my friends have told me I'd rather die at home than go to a public hospital. No one can tell me exactly what's different. One person informed me they aren't dirty but gave the impression they're crowded and without the same level of treatment capabilities. Therefore, today we were in a private hospital, something even "ordinary" people can't always afford without a generous benefit package from their employer.

When I heard all of this I started thinking about the conundrum we've created in the process of providing and receiving healthcare. Looking at Brasil, the government makes a very bold and expensive move in providing healthcare to anyone that needs it, but instead creates a division between Healthcare 1 and Healthcare 2. You can see it through both a positive and negative light.

On the one hand, all people have access to some degree of healthcare. Whether it's a facility that provides lower quality care in terms of capabilities or not, at least access exists. 

The other hand isn't quite as reassuring. While access exists, more qualified doctors tend to work in private hospitals for a few reasons. They have access to the resources they need to perform to the best of their abilities. Presumably, this access would lead to better performance by the doctor which boosts self-satisfaction in the workplace, and in turn reinforces the doctor's reason for working there. And on top of all of this, financial reasons also lure some of the more qualified doctors to private hospitals.

The conundrum here is that while all people have access to healthcare, the system has been manipulated such that certain people don't have access to the healthcare they deserve. We allow paper money to influence human well-being, which is just a difficult concept to understand when mixed with even the smallest grain of compassion. Evidence of yet another human invention degrading the human population.

While waiting, we found it quite difficult to sleep or do much of anything in the bedside chairs, so we ditched. Not the most compassionate thing to do for someone we care about, but if you dislike hospitals the way most people do you might understand. Our solution? Ice cream.

I had an intense course in language immersion for the afternoon while my friend, Neto, and I had ice cream and wandered around a while. I ordered a cheesecake milkshake, which turned out to be a little different from the cheesecake ice cream I had expected. I determined "strawberry cheesecake" should actually read "strawberry lime cheesecake" because of an extreme sour lime kick. Imagine a sour key lime pie mixed with strawberries. It wasn't terrible but not what I expected.

He pulled out his mp3 player and we listened to some United States pop music. The worst part about listening to popular music from the US is that people usually know more words than I do. I'm "out of touch" for not knowing the newest Miley Cyrus song or singing the wrong lyrics to Lady Gaga songs.

After a couple hours of killing time we checked back in at the hospital to our lonely patient. While we'd been wandering around, he'd been feeling left for dead by us--well, not completely. So what did we do? Explained our absence and got out as quickly as possible again. This time we accompanied another friend, Ivo, to the mall where they wanted me to get something to eat since they'd already eaten lunch. I found a place called "Habib's" that served weird looking pizza and ordered something in the realm of a quesadilla and pizza fusion. Not bad at all, and super cheap.

The rest was mostly a jumble of walking and waiting, but we did run into Mickey and Minnie Mouse walking around the mall in big costumes. The guys got a kick out of them for awhile, and we took a goofy picture that is unfortunately stuck on my friend Neto's cell phone.

When we were leaving, Ivo decided to get a milkshake in the mall. We went to "Bob's Burgers" (very Brazilian, huh?) and while he ordered we talked in English in the line. Ivo has taken English classes for years and has some friends from the US and Europe, so he speaks English fluently. As he talked I paid less attention to his words than to the reaction of the young employees beyond the counter. They were all fascinated by us, and I noticed them whispering and smiling with each other while we waited. All trips to the mall so far have been the usual festival of staring at the gringo. I definitely can't fool anyone around here.