Parasitos

Well, I have a new topic to now blog about. I won't go into painful detail about it, but I seem to have contracted a parasite from either unsanitary water or food here in Nicaragua. I can't say that I'm too surprised, it was really only a matter of time. What did however take me aback a little bit was the visit to the hospital to see a doctor and get a lab test finished.

Knowing that Nicaraguan health care is free in public hospitals, and having heard many of the horror stories of awful doctors and hours-long lines, I decided that the better option would be to go to the private hospital down the road (where you have to pay a very small amount, but care is supposedly better). So I arrive and explain that I need to consult with a doctor. 200 cordobas ($10 dollars) upfront. OK. Next I enter a dingy dark hallway with peeling wallpaper and a foul odor (not of ammonia, like in the US, but something decidedly less pleasant). At the end of that hallway is a "waiting area" full of plastic chairs, some with 3 legs, some with four. Ants and other insects abound. After waiting about 30 minutes I gather there is only one doctor on staff, and one nurse who has me stand on a scale in the waiting room and takes my blood pressure as I wait. I am told the doctor is ready and go in and try to explain things about my digestive tract I never wanted to explain in English, let alone stumble through in Spanish.

Long story short, in all it cost $13.50 for this doctors visit (including the lab work). What I really got out of the visit, however, is that if this was the state of the private hospital, I probably never want to step foot into the government-run public hospitals. In this hospital there were gross one-stall bathrooms, and only one sink that didn't work and no soap in sight. I can't even fathom what public care must be like to induce people to come cough up the $10 or so instead that is probably at least a day's pay for most people. Sometimes the hardest thing of 3rd world country annoyances is that even as I'm sitting there in a frustrating situation thinking "this really sucks", the knowledge that 99% of the people living in this country have it much much worse than me makes me feel even more frustrated and grumpy.

On a brighter note, it appears that the government also subsidizes medicine here, as I took my slip saying what I needed to a pharmacy (well, three really, before I found one that had the medicine) and it costs approximately .75 cents for the entire dosage I needed. Now if only medicine in the US were so cheap!