Hospital

A couple of days ago we got some first-hand experience of the Nepali medical system. Alastair started feeling ill one evening and then vomited all night. The next day he couldn’t keep down any fluids for more than a couple of hours and was getting dehydrated, so we decided we’d better go to hospital. A lovely teacher, called Kim, kindly accompanied us and translated when necessary.

We went to Phewa City Hospital which is a private clinic – one of about 20 hospitals in Pokhara. The entrance hall / reception to A&E is also a ward containing six beds, and Alastair was lucky enough to get the one next to the window. A medical orderly came to see me and took his blood pressure (rather low) and soon the nurses were hooking up a drip and giving him intravenous fluids and antibiotics. Everything was sterile-packed, but you had to pay for each item as it was provided. A blood sample was sent to the lab and the results (unsurprisingly) confirmed a bacterial infection, but no other issues.

There were a couple of other patients on the ward, also on drips, receiving treatment for the infections which abound in the monsoonal climate. Later, an old later was brought in an her wrists and ankles clamped will giant crocodile clips to what looked like an ancient fax machine, which turned out to be an ECG.

Eventually, sometime after four O’clock, the consultants arrived. Nepali consultants spend most of the day at state hospitals and then retreat to their respective private hospitals in the late afternoon, where they see patients until about midnight. The consultant who saw Alastair was very jovial and spent an efficient couple of minutes with each patient. He proscribed a pharmacopeia of drugs to be taken for five days: gastric enzymes, two antibiotics and an anti-amoebic drug amongst others. All in all the visit was very efficient: four and a half hours spent in the hospital and no queuing at all – beats the NHS!

Now Alastair’s recovering and relaxing back at the school – all those drugs really knock it out of you.