handy hints for travellers 14: being in hospital

Hope it doesn't happen to you; but here are my hints if you end up in a public hospital in Moscow. This, of course, is only my experience (and of one particular hospital and I think I was pretty lucky) so would appreciate any additional advice from others...

1. Bring your own cutlery - at the minimum a spoon. Most people had their own plates and cups also. Actually things seemed pretty clean, but I guess only 'washed up' rather than sterilised.

2. Food provided is low-level edible, but good to have extra supplies if possible. Otherwise there was always bread and a very weak, watery coffee available (see photo above).

3. Bring your own nightclothes and 'indoor slob' clothes (must be a better name, but I mean the relatively disreputable but very comfortable stuff most Russians - and me - wear indoors) .  I was stripped naked for surgery and felt quite lucky to be given a (temporary) nightgown when I woke up.

4. Remember your slippers - these are essential in any Russian indoor situation, but of course come into their own in hospital. One day I will get the etiquette of when to wear/when to remove, but not yet.

5. Expect few niceties. No curtains around bed, or privacy during examinations. Bed-sheets changed about once a week.

6. BRING YOUR OWN TOILET PAPER!

7. It is assumed you have family or friends who will help out, bring you treats etc. My surgeon asked crossly why my children were not there to help (though I don't see how that would have helped the language problem we were having at the time).

8. Valuables and clothes were 'signed in' before my operation; then taken to some distant and impregnable store. So don't do what I do. Keep your mobile phone and anything else you are going to need immediately after an operation with your clothes. It took me several days to find out how to collect my important stuff (permissions required and much signing of paperwork), that the store closes over the weekend and that I was required to stagger in my pyjamas across the whole hospital campus - a small town in its own right -  to personally collect them. I never again want to be stuck in hospital without a phone.

9. Most doctors and nurses will expect some form of tip, with varying degrees of effect on the quality of services provided. I have no idea about amounts, as this was done for me. It certainly relates to the fact that surgeons and doctors seem to be paid below the average wage for Moscow. I couldn't find accurate figures for 2010, but in 2008 doctors in polyclinics were getting 20,000 rubles a month (400 pounds or US$826).

10. The word больно (which I pronounce bolnoi) - meaning (it) hurts-  was very useful when I was prodded, along with saying OY, which is the Russian version of OUCH.

traffic again

It was a surreal experience attempting to rush through Moscow traffic in an ambulance. There is a technique it seems, which involves driving down the middle of the 10 lanes of cars going each way in the vague hope that 1.) drivers will or can give way and 2.) you don't meet an emergency vehicle or equivalent trying the same thing in the other direction.

Started out sitting in an upright position, with wide open eyes and mouth  as we edged forward in jerks and near misses. Then, after some considerable time had to lie down, to find that this (non) movement was periodically interrupted with what felt like driving over very rough ground (as over a field).

When we finally got to the hospital, the ambulance driver came and apologised for having to drive over flower-beds (I still have no idea what this actually means in the Moscow context).


Note: I stole this picture from EnglishRussia as, not surprisingly, I didn't have my camera with me. Many thanks to them, great site. 

unexpected

Well that was a bit of a surprise. Been struggling a bit with my health these last few months, but then it was back to Moscow and suddenly wham-bam, acute appendicitis, rushed into hospital (well, we will get back to that 'rushed' thing) and here I am appendix-free, and with a new 2-inch long trophy scar.

State hospital with almost no English spoken anywhere but medical care has been very good, sometimes brusque but also often caring.  Deliveries of chicken soup etc. almost every day from my kind colleagues (and a fridge to put it in) as well as fellow patients pointing out the breakfast trolley when they think I am missing it.

 In fact the weirdest thing has been watching so much Russian daytime TV. I have managed to spend over a year in Moscow without watching the television at all; so now pinned to my bed, with nothing to do and capable of very little, I have literally been lying here with my mouth open watching one dire 'copy' of US or UK reality show after another. And I mean dire. A medical and health programme that spent twenty minutes on the fact that hats make your hair static. Interior design make-over shows which show how to make things (clay bowls, painted furniture) by presenters who clearly don't know how to actually make anything. A style programme where the women look worse in their new outfits.

Now I realise that most people living here already know this, but it really has been a considerable (additional) shock to the system.