manila hospital dilemmas…

There is a chain of men’s barber shops in Manila called “Bruno’s”. Bruno’s is a magical place of relaxation and peacefulness. I could easily spend a couple hours every day in there getting facials (the manly kind), massages, pedicures and the like. But in the interest of getting stuff done, I limit myself to only one visit a month to get a haircut, facial, massage, and general much-needed improvement in presentation.

I gleefully cross off the days on my calendar until I’m allowed to visit Bruno’s again, and today was the day. I woke up excited and raced down to my barber (Boyet) at Bruno’s @ Greenbelt to have my monthly 3 hour session.

Everything was going wonderfully and I had drifted peacefully off to sleep with my hair dreched in some sweet fruity conditioner of some kind, a layer of soothing cream plastered on my face, cucumbers on my eyes, my feet in a warm tingly pleasant foot bath, and a masseuse working out the knots in my legs when I was rudely awoken by a sharp pain in my left ear. I ripped off the facial mask to glower at the lady who was cleaning my ears. It was a new girl I had not seen before, obviously just out of Ear Cleaning School, who almost certainly graduated at the bottom of her class, judging by her technique. Boyet rushed over in a panic to see what had gone wrong, but he was on my left side so I couldn’t hear what he was saying - all I could hear from my left ear was a low buzzing sound as my ear radiated in pain.

In a panic, and with Boyet staying on my right side to calm me and communicate with me effectively, I rushed out of Bruno’s with a plan to head for the nearest emergency room. As I run out of Bruno’s, Boyet yells “I hope you come again.” I love Boyet, but I did not appreciate his sense of humour at that moment. As I wandered the streets of Makati in a buzzing daze of confusion, I slowly came to my senses.

The only emergency room I am aware of is at the Makati Medical Centre, a big hospital. As I made a beeline for Makati Medical, through the buzzing and the pain, I remembered the last few times I had been to Makati Medical and my fervent oaths never to put myself through that pain again. I decided to “sleep on it”, if I could, and revisit the decision later in the night, if the buzzing and pain did not decrease.

As I arrived home, all out of Valium and desperately in need of a pick-me-up, I decided to end my boycott (2 days and counting…) of Jethro’s blog as Jethro is a proud and stubborn man who will never apologise for his speedist bashing of the other day, even if he knows that Speed Readers are people too. And I shouldn’t hurt myself with a boycott that won’t achieve anything. As fortune would have it, just when I’m toying with this idea of flirting with the Makati Medical emergency room, I read all about Jethro’s adventures at Makati Medical today. You can read about it on his blog, but it brought back all the painful memories for me of my three experiences at that wonderful madhouse institution and the reasons for my solemn oaths to never visit that house of horrors again.

When I first arrived in Manila, a friend of mine had to visit Makati Medical to get some stiches out of his head (he rolled his car). He said, “I’ll just be 10 minutes.” Now, I was still somewhat naive in the ways of Manila time, but I wasn’t so stupid as to not realise that his 10 minutes would really be something more like an hour, so I decided to see a doctor whilst I was there as I’d been getting some cramps and hot flushes and some morning sickness, and I thought I’d better rule out pregnancy. I sweet-talked a nurse into giving me directions for a doctor’s office, and she ushered me into a little waiting room, where I waited patiently for about half an hour but no one arrived. Realising my sweet-talking was not of the James Alexander Zero Cox quality, I emerged from the waiting room to try again. I was ushered into another waiting room by another nurse, and still no doctor arrived.

I bumped into my friend when I emerged again and he told me he was having no luck finding a doctor to take the stiches out. I told him to stop bothering me with details as I had my own concerns. We had been in Makati Medical for over an hour when I decided to go straight to a doctor and not waste time with these nurse middlemen. I wandered the halls and grabbed the first doctor I saw. He ushered me into a waiting room that may or may not have been a janitor’s closet, and told me he would be back in a few minutes. 20 minutes later, my friend had gotten his stiches out and told me we had to go. The doctor never returned to the janitor’s closet.

I realised I may need to make an appointment should I wish to visit that place again. The next day, I made an appointment for 4pm and went to see a doctor. I arrived at Makati Medical with a room number at 3:50pm. After much pain and wandering, with many false directions given to me by staff, I arrived at the doctor’s room at 4:15, apologising for being late. I needn’t have worried. At 4:45, after some enjoyable small talk with his receptionist, the doctor wandered into his room for our appointment. After some examination, he informed me I was not pregnant but merely had some mild food poisoning and he gave me some scripts. He also told me he wanted to do an endoscopy (?) and stick a tube down my throat into my stomach to check for some stuff. I would need to go under for the mild surgery at 8am the next day. As I had been under a lot of stress, I thought I would get a Valium script off him whilst I was there. He said, “No problem, but I charge a personal fee of $50 for every Valium script I hand out.” I asked what the fee was for. He said the fee was for him. I asked what happened if I refused to pay the $50. He said he wouldn’t give me the Valium prescription. I said, “Oh, so this is like a bribe then?” He said, “No, not at all.” Vastly confused at this stage, I handed him the $50 bribe for my Valium script and went downstairs to the massive Makati Medical pharmacy to get my scripts filled. After waiting in line for 20 min, I reached the little window, and the lady told me they didn’t have the 3 medicines I had scripts for. I left in disgust with a plan to return for my procedure the next day.

I filled my scripts at 3 different pharmacies that afternoon. I visited 7 pharmacies in total.

I followed all the strict directions (couldn’t eat or drink for 8 hours or something before the procedure) and, after setting my alarm to wake up in time to account for the half hour taxi ride in Makati peak hour traffic (Makati Medical is about 1 km from where I live), at 8am the next day, I was waiting bright and early at the surgery for my procedure. They didn’t have me scheduled. I called my doctor, he said he definitely scheduled me and he came down to yell at the nurse in Tagalog. The nurse yelled back, showed the doctor her scheduling list, the doctor looked embarassed and admitted he must have forgotten to schedule my endoscopy. He told me to wait for a couple hours and they would *try* and get me in if someone doesn’t show. I decided I did not want these moronic fools putting me under anaesthetic as I may never wake up. I left Makati Medical in disgust, vowing never to return.

My ear is still buzzing, the pain has subsided some, and I think it may be safer to walk around with a buzzing ear than risk a mental breakdown or a leg amputation at Makati Medical. I’ll keep you updated with this situation as it develops….

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