I hate hostipals

*Baldrick: Oh, no, I hate hostipals. My grandfather went into one, and when he come out, he was dead.

Blackadder: He was also dead when he went in, Baldrick. He’d been run over by a traction engine.*

I share Baldrick’s concern, if not his approach to spelling and grammar. I hate the idea of having to go to a hospital. In my advancing years, I am aware that many of my age group suffer from ill-health, many to the point that they are no longer with us; and I try and remember how lucky I am to be currently free of serious ailments. Buddha apparently said: “Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” Amen to that.

However, my son has been in need of visiting a hospital to fix a hernia. I suffered from a similar problem in the same region of my body about eight years ago; but was keen to point out that his could not possibly be caused by my quite excellent genes. Today was the day of his operation, and although it is a simple enough procedure, I have naturally been in a state of fatherly worry.

It was not possible to be in the UK to offer moral support, so I decided to do the next best thing and visit a hospital here, so we could have a long distance shared experience.

Last night I watched a program about a face transplant and thought I might apply for one of those; although the issue of donors might prove to be too difficult. So instead I went for an affliction that requires attention from the pioneers working at the forefront of medicine, something so terrible that more research funds should be allocated by governments and charities to help find a cure. Yes, I rolled up to hospital sporting an ingrowing toenail.

You may mock, and you probably are, but the little fucker had burrowed into my toe and it was painful and infected. I had tried to ignore it for a couple of weeks but it wouldn’t go away, so something had to be done.

In most countries you will find practising podiatrists/chiropodists, doctors of the feet. Not in Thailand. Maybe it is the belief that the feet are the least respected part of the body; so nobody entering medicine would consider specialising in such a low class area. But she who must be obeyed launched herself into Thai Google and found a doctor who humbled himself by addressing problems of the feet.

That was the good news, the bad news was that he operated out of Bangkok Pattaya Hospital; undoubtedly the worst hospital in the area. It’s all shiny and modern, but it has a reputation for providing sub-standard medical care at an extortionate price. With such a complex complaint, I was wary of using their services, but she who must be obeyed had already made an appointment, so off we went to the big concrete bucket where you pour in money hospital.

We arrive at the waiting area and a nurse is quickly on the scene to take me to a little room where they check your weight and blood pressure. They also charge you several hundred baht for this “service”, but that is never mentioned.

I need to check your weight and blood pressure.

No you don’t. It’s just a toenail.

Oh

She looked crestfallen, probably on commission.

Half an hour after the appointment time, I get to see the doctor who is about twelve years old. I agree with his diagnosis that he will need to numb my toe and then rummage around to see what is going on. I find out later that this two minute session cost 600 baht.

I am sent out to wait for the call to the little room where they do minor procedures fully equipped operating theatre. A woman in a dark uniform approaches; “please come with me”. I follow her with some concern, have I breached the dress code, was I looking at a passing nurse too lasciviously? “You have to go to admissions” she tells me, in a voice that indicates I really should have known that I had to go to admissions without her having to come and boss me around.

I am ushered into a small room where a hard-faced assistant asks me how I intend paying for the procedure that has now been elevated to an “operation” and is now estimated to cost an eye-watering 4,500 baht. We jointly study my insurance card and agree that will not be applicable in this instance. Then we jointly study my credit card and agree that it will be delightfully applicable. Duly satisfied, the woman in the dark uniform, dismisses me and I am left to make my own way through the maze of corridors to the waiting area.

Finally. I am taken to a small room where a nurse prepares various items which I will have to pay for. The doctor arrives and sticks a syringe in my toe, accompanied by the painfully accurate prediction that “this will hurt”. Then he does the rummaging around bit and emerges triumphant from my toe with a large and bloody spike of nail. Kerrching! 1,500 baht, as I am later to discover.

Then I had to hang around for twenty minutes while the nurse scanned something, before being marched under guard to the cashier who presented me with a bill that was just believable enough to accept, but also obscure enough to make challenge impossible. “Nursing and midwifery charge” (presumably just the former), “Packaged Medical Charge”, “Medical supplies” and “Drugs and parenteral nutrition”, which I assumed to be the antibiotics required to pacify the slightly infected seething mass of pus that used to be my toe. But of course, as usual, they had thrown in a big packet of Paracetamol “for the pain”. The pain being to my wallet of course, as I have no pain in my toe any more; and if I did, I have a box full of Paracetamol tablets, being an unwanted harvest from previous visits to Bangkok Pattaya Hospital.

The total damage was 3,500 baht which is, of course, robbery. I always leave Bangkok Pattaya Hospital with a feeling that I have just been more mugged than cured.

I hate hostipals, particularly this one.

Comments 🔗

2010-08-31 | Pete says

What would Soi 4 have charged for the same thing? Methinks you complain too much.

Anyhow - how’s the toe?

2010-08-31 | genuinej says

Commiserations. I’ve had both my big toes done for in-growing toenails. The first, c 1959, needed a general anaesthetic and an overnight stay in hospital. The second, some 20 years later, just a two hour op under a local. Both free of course under the UK’s wonderful NHS. I’m surprised you are wingeing at the cost to you. A mere £72 to relieve such a painful condition. This is almost as bad as Stanley scrounging a bus pass when he visits the UK. Hope the son is ok btw.

2010-09-01 | Spike says

Of course I complain too much, its what I do.

My son is home and recovering. I am still wracked with pain and leaving trails of pus around the house, like a toxic slug. Not really.

2010-09-01 | TheSon says

My op would have clocked in at around £2500, or possibly more given how substantial all the surgeons kept telling me the hernia was. Thankfully, the NHS agreed to cover it. Plus I got to have it done at the shiny new Churchill hospital which, as hospitals go, is very bearable. All the nurses and orderlies were jolly nice too.

I had my ingrowing toe ‘done’ in Miri, didn’t I? I will make sure I keep an eye on my big toes, they are definitely ones to make trouble in the future.

2010-09-01 | Spike says

2,500 pounds is exactly 3,500 baht at current exchange rates.

Don’t worry about your toenails, you have your mother’s feet.

2010-09-02 | Q’on says

bkk hospital sucks <– co-signed. the fees they charge and their methods should be outlawed. its a huge, luxury hotel with pretty nurses trained to extract as much cash as possible.

2010-09-02 | Billy says

Spike, you really should consider changing your Bureau de Change …. they are ripping you off rather more than your toe nail surgeon(sic)…

1 GBP = 48.1865 THB or 3,500 THB = 72.6345 GBP per “the world’s favourite currency site” this very morning

2010-09-02 | Spike says

Billy, I was approximately correct. I can’t look at exchange rates any more; the baht used to be 72 to the pound, now look at it. My pension. which always used to be peanuts, is now worth less than peanuts.

2010-09-02 | jim lee says

Biily?

2010-09-02 | Wentworth says

I played tennis in brand new shoes once and my big toes swelled like balloons. That night at work unable to walk I heated a paper clip with a gas torch and melted a hole through each nail. The nails fell off after a few days and new ones grew back, eventually. Total cost $0. Just out of interest how much would you charge to work on someone’s rotting toe?

2010-09-03 | Spike says

Wentworth, what drugs were you on at the time?