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Wednesday last week I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. It was caused by that other sensation in my stomach - a bloated, uncomfortable feeling, that I hoped was just indigestion, but feared might be a reoccurence of my cholecystitis (which those of you who read my post about my $137 hospital stay know submitted me to Norway's socialist, commie health care system.) By the end of work that day, I knew that should I have a fever, I was due a meeting with that darned socialist, commie health care system (henceforth referred to as TDSCHCS) 4 days too early. Last time's unpleasant result was an appointment scheduled for mid-August, that had luckily been postponed to mid-September, where I would be assessed for a major torture session, in the form of surgery. Now I knew I had no choice but to face TDSCHCS head on, and in the morning call my GP - I knew I should have gone to the ER straight away, but fell asleep, and woke up in the middle of the night, and figured a couple of hours wouldn't matter so much.
Duly on Thursday morning I called my GP, to see if I could get away with visiting him, who's practically Gorbatchev compared to the Lenin of the ER, but they told me to head straight down to the ER. Which I did, on the bus (the socialist, commie public transport system, which merits another post another time) which got me the 10 miles to the downtown ER quickly. We do have an ER closer, but the downtone ER is bigger, and I hoped I'd be forgotten among the throngs of hypochondriacs who use the ER so much since they don't have to pay - but alas, I only had to wait 1 hr before I was called (the doctor later had the audacity to say that I didn't look like I was bothered by the pains, which I wasn't, since I didn't have a lot of pain.) Inside the examination room, the nurse took my blood pressure, temp, etc; someone else drew blood; the doctor examined me, explained what she thought was going on, referred with a surgeon to doublecheck the decision to send me off to hospital (the aforementioned doctor said she hadn't realized the infection was so strong, since I didn't complain - naturally, I wanted to reply, because I didn't want to fall into the clutches of the TDSCHCS one day too early, and on second thought, I had started feeling abdominally uncomfortable on Tuesday evening, but let's not mention that not going to the doctor makes us more sick.) So, after having to pay the insultingly small sum of $50 (they tried to offer to remit it if I earned to little, or had had medical expenses above a certain limit this year regardless of pay, but I didn't want to participate in that commie pinko scheme - after all, $50 is what I earn in 1 hr of work, pre-tax) I was put in a cab, and sent to a different hospital than the first one.
I figured all socialist, commie, hospitals were the same, so you can imagine my outrage when I discovered that TDSCHCS had gotten their clutches on a private hospital. A private hospital that was run by a faith-based organisation, no less!! I didn't know whether the fact that there were no profits going into some CEO's pocket made it better or worse that the hospital had decided to cooperate with TDSCHCS, but I decided on the former. If I was going to a proper private hospital, I wanted them to gouge me, and suck my wallet dry and stuff it all up the nose of the director's son in the form of cocaine, rather than go to such things as developing knowledge on how to treat elderly and dying patients.
After another round of check-ups and blood tests with a nurse and a medical student, I was put in a bed and wheeled up to the ward. I was put in a 3-bed room, but there were no other patients there. I was also denied sustenance, as they claimed I would have a shrot wait until my ultrasound examination. I scoffed (silently, 'cause I knew you didn't make those with needles angry) - everyone knows that in a socialist commie health care system you have to wait until you die for everythin, but after less than an hour a nurse came to take me down to the US. The US technician explained what he saw, and I knew I was in for several days of TDSCHCS. And I was right. 4 days and nights of solicitous nurses and nurse's aides, who drew blood, made beds, served me meals 3 times a day and snacks twice a day, gave me medicines for infection and nausea and fever, and accompanied the doctor on his daily visit. It was, in short, a socialist, commie, hell.
On Sunday, when I was feeling better and had stayed the same lenght of time as my last bout, I pleaded to be let go - but they callously denied my attempts to free myself from TDSCHCS. Aha! I thought (The exclamation, not the pop group.) They are forcing me to stay so that they can get more money from me. That made me feel a bit better, so you can imagine my dissappointment when they let me go today without asking me to pay anything for my stay. Nothing, for a 4-night stay in hospital is indecent, if you ask me. I had one silver lining to the cloud - I got to cancel my previous appointment, where I was supposed to be examined and apparently told that if I wanted, I could get my gallbladder removed next week. Thanks to the new infection, I managed to push that date at least 6-8 weeks in the future. What they were mumbling about me being able to schedule the surgery at the hospital in the town my family lives, 450 miles away, I really didn't catch. I was too busy being dissappointed at having to pay only $25 for my medication, and having to listen to the same spiel of low income and medical expense limit as the last time I got to pay something.
So, friends, that is the horrible story of my renewed acquaintance with TDSCHCS of Norway. You must agree, it is awful. Absolutely horrible - as a socialist health care system must be, for so says the GOP.
(/sarcasm, tho' not very good sarcasm, since I'm not 100% yet.)
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