So a girl walks into a bar in London. I mean, a pub. A girl walks into a pub. I mean, a girl tries to walk into a pub while also attempting T9 texting on a foreign phone and ends up walking into a glass door. Man, new phones are hard. A girl gives herself a concussion.
Anyway, I may or may not know this girl, but let's just say that since last Friday, my head has been hurting like crazy. But aren't foreign study programs all about new experiences? Like nationalized health services? All I can say is that now I've tried NHS, and I never want to go back.
My head had been throbbing for a full day when my roommates suggested visiting a doctor. Apparently you never know with head injuries, and my roommate heard of someone who seemed fine for two whole days and then all of a sudden dropped dead or something. I'm not sure about the details but dropping dead always sounds like a bad idea, so we all headed over to the nearest hospital so I could try to see a doctor.
Before we went, I was picturing a waiting room full of people bleeding profusely or waiting to be seen while on death's door in other ways. I knew they would obviously make someone with a bloodless head injury wait for several hours.
When we got to the hospital, though, there was only one person ahead of me to sign in, and there seemed to be only a few other people hanging around the waiting area, all of whom were definitely not dying. Actually, everyone seemed pretty relaxed, but they were also all talking in Bengali, so I couldn't be too sure.
Where were all the emergencies in this room? This was not at all like hospitals in New York City.
I didn't have much time to think about it, since I was called in to see the doctor after only five minutes. After some basic tests and questions he handed me a sheet of the do's and don'ts when dealing with concussions. Obviously this wasn't anything I couldn't have learned online, but at least I knew I wasn't about to suddenly die.
Paying for a five-minute doctor's visit is the worst though I could only hope Dartmouth insurance would come through to reimburse me for the now seemingly pointless trip.
But the doctor never gave me a bill. And when I went to the sign-in counter to ask about how I had to go about paying for this, the guy there looked confused. This is London of course the visit was entirely free. Even for foreigners, even if I ended up needing some surgery or other more serious procedure.
A cab driver I spoke to on the way back was surprised that I was so happy with the hospital. He didn't understand why a doctor would charge you if he didn't do any treatments or find anything wrong. And what kind of emergency room makes you wait so long if you're clearly in pain?
Although the cab driver did say that the wait isn't always that easy in London hospitals either, apparently if we had waited until after dinner, then the so-called "hooligans" start coming in with injuries from bar fights and the like.
So at least drunken stupidity happens on both sides of the Atlantic, but if those hooligans were in the United States, they'd better hope they had good insurance.
