Adventures in Czech Hospital Visiting
I promised reporting from the frontlines of awkward situations, and like Joe Namath or John the Baptist, I have delivered. Unbelievably, it was not a porkchop and potato dumpling lodged behind my larynx, it is strep throat.
Josh and I went to the huge Fakultni Nemocnice Motol (Hospital Motol) that’s part new, and part old ghetto Soviet. No joke:
On the other side behind us, the windows actually opened all the way. Josh was like “I’ve never seen windows like that at a hospital, it’s like they’re inviting people to jump out.” This side of the building also offered what we assume is Czech wheelchair accessibility:
So, yeah, guess where the foreigners’ department is.
Of course, the woman with the least job satisfaction of anyone in the Czech Republic happens to be the blond woman at the foreigners desk at Hospital Motol. Despite wearing what I Dream of Jeanie would wear if she were in her early fifties and at her beach house (white peasant blouse, pink cotton elastic waist pants, gold Tevas), she had all the charm and cheer of this woman.
She just DID NOT KNOW when we’d get doctor, because the CLINIC CLOSED AT THREE, which we SHOULD HAVE KNOWN even though we were told it was four and how DARE we come at 3:05, but we COULD TRY if we wanted, but first we MUST PUT DOWN DEPOSIT. And deposit 1,000 Crowns which must be HUGE INCONVENIENCE for us even though you might realize that 1,000 Crowns is only $50. And if my throat had bothered me for THREE OR FOUR DAYS, WHY didn’t we come SOONER?
And just to be clear, she reminded us, before giving us frankly sparse directions to the appropriate department:
“There are sick Czechs here, too. They need doctors. This is Czech hospital.”
So, we wandered our way up to the next floor that had a color scheme of Cocoa Cocoa Puff Brown and the color Michelle Obama wore on Inauguration Day, except a little brighter. Since there was no clear reception area, no English signs, and reading Czech pretty much amounts to “DMRPXXTEOSM BEZ SKUVTSPY” and guessing, we wandered around every possible hallway option, up to and including going into an area apparently for doctors only. We know because we were immediately yelled at in Czech. Naturally, in a city where everyone seems to speak English, the only place they do not speak English is the hospital.
Despite Eastern Bloc Jeanie prophesizing our deaths in the 2nd floor waiting room after an anguished 100 years of solitude waiting for a doctor to come down, there was like one couple there waiting and no one else, and a doctor was there in about fifteen minutes.
“Millerovska, Katerina?”
That’s me!
So, it took very little time to establish I have strep throat. It was pretty much like a normal doctor’s visit, except there was no rapid strep test, my doctor looked like she was 25 (though notably the only pleasant person I met at Motol), and we had to employ Czech Google to translate Sulfa and Suprax to make sure she wasn’t prescribing me something I was allergic to. She also hilariously asked me, “This is not your normal voice, no?” Yeah, no kidding, I spent three days rasping and squeaking like a 13 year-old boy or a 45 year-old chain smoker, and a Venn diagram of those two voices includes only me with strep throat and Miley Cyrus on a Tuesday.
Anyway, Dr. Eva told me to drink tea and stay in and take my antiobiotics at the appropriate time, and that was it. Josh and I rolled on back to the foreigners department where Rosa Klebb pointedly ignored us for like five minutes, in visceral fury that the Ugly Americans were back so quickly when every Czech citizen was in that hospital, that day needing doctors. All in all, the doctor’s visit and the prescription ended up costing about $100, which is absurdly cheap.
And so I can only conclude with what Lauren Bruns emailed me yesterday: “Hahahahah. Not that I think the fact that you have strep is funny. But let’s be honest. That would ONLY happen to YOU. Typical.”
