We had the usual performance of falling asleep in the middle of a film, being awoken relentlessly during the middle of the night, the injections, the blood tests, the total rubbish food etc etc.
And then the doctor appeared. He wasn’t totally convinced that I had a phlebite – he was more of the opinion that I was suffering from an infection and he proposed a course of antibiotics. I told him that I didn’t agree with the use of antibiotics but he reckoned that it was essential given the gravity of the situation.
Anyway, a short while later, it was agreed that I should go back to the hospital at Montlucon. After all, they had been treating me in the past and they will still be treating me later in the week. Accordingly a private ambulance arrived to take me. And then this is where it all went from bad to worse.
In France, you have to pay for ambulance services, and this is covered by your health insurance, which means effectively that 99% of people don’t actually pay for it. But with my insurance scheme I have to pay for most things unless they are pris en charge and with this being sprung on me at the very last moment, I hadn’t had the opportunity to make a phone call to arrange it. And so I had to pay … gulp … €190.
And the driver asked me if I could pay for it, to which I replied that if we stopped at a cash machine. And then five minutes later she asked me “do you really have your cards on you?” to which I went totally berserk. It’s a long time since I’ve been insulted like that, and I’ll tell you something – I bet it’s been a long time since she’s been insulted like she was just then by the time that I had finished.
Some people might say that it’s not very gallant of me, but my response is that you shouldn’t give it out if you can’t take it back.
Back at Montlucon, the receptionist at the hospital asked me what I was going to do about my outstanding bill. I replied “nothing at all”.
She looked at me strangely, and so I continued “when I came here the other Friday, I gave your emergency admissions people my Insurance card with contact details and everything on it, so that you could set up a direct billing account on the spot, but they refused to do anything about it.
“And so I had a form sent to me on Monday and I filled it in and gave it to you on Tuesday to fax off so that you would know that it had gone and that you had a copy with all of the details, but you refused to do that too, and so as far as I’m concerned, what’s happening now is all your problem, not mine. I couldn’t care less”.
Back up here, the doctor looked at my arm and was horrified by what he saw. He was astonished that I had been discharged like this. He drew quite carefully on my arm the area of interest.
They managed to rustle up some food for me and even though it was rather ad-hoc, it was streets better than anything that I had had to eat in Riom.
I was ushered into a bedroom where a rather elderly gentleman was already installed. And as the afternoon drew on, I could see that it was going to be another one of “these” nights as my room-mate was clearly not at the races. But what did help was that one of the nurses found a type-of alcohol-impregnated covering that was freezing cold and when she put it on my inflamed arm, I could feel the relief immediately and I wish that someone had thought of doing that a few days ago.
And then the pantomime began. My room-mate had a seizure. I was evacuated and eventually ended up in a totally empty room, with my bed, chair, table and possessions following on behind. And so I settled down again, only for it to be decided that the empty room was more valuable as an empty room and I was moved yet again, this time to one of the empty day wards.
I had my alcohol pad changed, and then settled down for third-time lucky. I switched on a film and slowly dozed off into a deep sleep.
