The vitals ... of my teenage son last week at the emergency room.
After some of his classmates urged me to PLEASE take him to the doctor, I sent him on his merry way. I truly assumed that it was nothing more than a simple virus, and went on MY merry way to a reception.
Halfway through that reception, the doctor called and said he was sending Terran to the Emergency Room, and could I please go with him.
I rushed home and made arrangements for Shanti to stay with the kids. Phoned the Husb and he immediately set out to booking a return flight home from his business trip. The doctor feared a bout with appendicitis, and the ER staff immediately set to prepping him for surgery ...
... right next to the Resuscitation Room (which has an ominous sound to it).
IVs were stuck, liquids and all food were banned and paperwork was filled out.
After an initial check and once-over and a phone call with the doctor who would be administering the surgery, I started in on the paperwork.
(It took over an hour to get the paperwork filled out ... during which time I was asked what country I was from. When I answered United States, a different file was pulled out - from which I was read the price list for the various room options (single bed, double bed, quadruple bed, etc.))
The gal helping me chatted on her phone, the guy helping HER chatted on his phone. The printer was out of ink, the computer wasn't working so we had to walk to a different wing to finish the admittance process.
I was a nervous wreck. But you wouldn't have known it. Inside my stomach had fallen and my blood pressure was rising. There was a metallic taste in my mouth and my palms were clammy. Terran was somewhere getting an ultrasound and bloodwork done, possibly being scheduled for surgery ...and I was sitting idly ... waiting for paperwork to be finished.
I tried my best to stay calm and not completely freak out that I was a 15 minute walk from wherever Terran was ... and kept telling myself to be glad that he was at least "old enough" to be by himself while I was mindlessly waiting for the printer ink to be replaced.
After the determination was made to admit him, the Husb made arrangements to fly home from a business trip and my dear friend offered to come and sit with the littles (actually several friends offered to help - which was so appreciated!).
We got settled in his room, and the ER surgeon and the bariatric surgeon both came to see Terran. Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of waiting, based off of the ultrasound, it was determined that he should undergo a CT Scan to rule out appendicitis.
During the next couple of hours, the Husb made it back to Delhi, the littles fell asleep and we still waited for the CT Scan. Husb and I swapped out at the hospital and I headed home to relieve my friend and get some sleep ... and the Husb did night-time duty at the hospital. Finally at 2:00 am, the results from the CT scan came back and the surgeon determined that Terran did not have any issues with his appendix and instead had a "severe intestinal infection."
More antibiotics were administered via the IV, and they ordered him to get some sleep and continue not to eat (a hard order to follow when you're a strapping teenager like Terran!). If all went well, they'd release him two days later.
Long story short (or maybe this is already too long a story?) ... two days later, he was released from the hospital and besides battling another strange virus this past week, is back to feeling normal.
The whole point of this post is to discuss medical care in India. Sure, our family has the luxury of choosing the best of the best when it comes to Emergency Rooms and Hospitals. We are selecting doctors and physicians who are happy to take personal calls on their personal cell phones AND make house calls. I know that this is not the case for every resident in Delhi.
But when I compare our previous experience with medical care in the United States (and boy, did we LOVE our doctor in Ohio) ... with our experience so far here - pickles to pickles - we really have no major complaints. Paperwork takes quite a bit longer and the process of filing for insurance reimbursement is a bit tedious, but overall, we are completely satisfied.
What I have a beef with ... or questions about ... is how a nearly 48 hour hospitalization .... in a room with only a single bed ... with an ultrasound, bloodwork, CT scan ... tons of IV antibiotics ... ER doctor consult, bariatric surgeon consults (several times over), etc. can ONLY cost us .... TOTAL ... with no insurance contribution ...
was not that much more than our ER copay ALONE would have been based on our last insurance policy.
What is up with that?
I will be completely honest. I haven't done much research on the newly passed healthcare reform in the United States. I did get a "HCR for Dummies" website link sent to me by a friend, which helps a bit -- but I still feel like I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. I won't pretend to be an expert on insurance policies, the business of insurance or how an administration of a healthcare organization functions.
What do you think? Is it all the insurance companies? Will the healthcare reform fix things? Change things? Mess things up?
Do you feel like "cheap" healthcare means sub-par treatment? Does it only feel like you're getting good treatment if it costs a fortune, or if you have to show an insurance card before being treated?
