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.<\/p>\n
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<\/em> 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 … \u20ac190. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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”. 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.<\/p>\n They managed to rustle up some food for me and even though it was rather ad-hoc<\/em>, it was streets better than anything that I had had to eat in Riom.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n
\nShe 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.
\n“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”.<\/p>\n
