A refugee and a Stay in the Hospital

Here goes another post about Italian Hospitals. I guess this is one of my areas of expertise.

As I explained elsewhere in this blog, In September 2008 I had a stroke. I was treated and released in October. Later in October I was back in the hospital with epileptic seizures brought on by the swelling of my brain due to my stroke. I was treated for another 2 weeks and released with a new medication, Tegretol to keep the seizures under control.

Tegretol has done it’s job. Unfortunately it’s a barbiturate and so I must have regular blood tests done to check on the level of the drug in my bloodstream. I had the latest of these blood tests in October 2017 and at that time I tested high for barbiturates. My Italian National Health Doctor cut my evening dose in half.

In Italy everyone has several doctors. My National Health Doctor (known as my Medico di Familia) is Dottoressa Giovanna. She writes prescriptions for meds and tests, deals with everyday maladies and oversees my general well-being. I also have my own private doctor (Dr. Vincenzo Bacci) and, since I’ve had a stroke, a neurologist (Professore Gino Bruno) who I see regularly. I also see other specialists from time to time. When these other doctors proscribe medications and tests I take their requests to Dottoressa Giovanna who gives me official prescriptions. With these prescriptions I can get free medicines, testing and further specialist care through the excellent Italian National Health system.

Last Sunday I awoke from my afternoon nap with (according to Judy) a very stricken look on my face talking in loops, much like the epileptic seizures I suffered after my stroke. This understandably freaked Judy and Karen out, so they got me to my home-away-from-home Ospedale Fate Bene Fratelli located on the Isola Tiberina. By then the seizure had passed and the emergency room doctor couldn’t tell what had happened. I was admitted to the hospital for tests. I remember none of this.

Italian healthcare is very good but it’s fairly Spartan. There are no private rooms, no TV, no special facilities for visitors and no phone service. Care is also heavily weighted in favor of the sick meaning that the sicker you are the more resources are devoted to you.

This all makes sense to me.

Since I was no longer in the throes of a seizure I was now fairly low on the totem pole. I spent my first night on a gurney in the cardiac ward in a room with a guy who was scheduled for an ablation the next day.

My roommate snored like a champion. He sounded like someone was strangling polar bear being accompanied by a group of Eskimos whistling “Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News. I stayed up all night recording him on my phone using up all of my storage capacity.

The next day they transferred me to a real bed in the neurology department. They took blood, did an electrocardiogram and an electroencephalogram. My roommate was an elderly gentleman named Mimmo and luckily he didn’t snore. That evening I managed to sleep well.

The Spartan nature of Italian hospitals means that few of the niceties are observed. It’s all part of furnishing high quality single payer medical coverage. If you want a private room with a TV and nurses constantly checking up on you, bringing you tea at all hours, you’re better off at a private hospital where the niceties are observed but, oddly enough, the care isn’t as good. This is because the best doctors work in the public sector and only visit private hospitals as time permits.

Anyway, this all begins with my stroke way back in September of 2008. I was kept in the hospital for about a month. On being released I was told to stay in bed. In October I began speaking in loops and ended back in the hospital. I was having an epileptic seizure. I was told by one of the emergency room staff that I kept the doctors and nurses in stitches with one liners and twisted observations. I began shouting for my wife Judy and when they let her in I took her hand and told her how much I loved her, how wonderful and beautiful she was, how perfect and understanding thereby embarrassing her immensely and causing the doctors to laugh even more.

I remember none of this either.

It was determined that I’d had an epileptic seizure due to a swelling of the brain inside my cranium. That was when I first began taking Tegretol which totally suppressed these seizures. The only problem is that Tegretol is a barbiturate so I had to have regular blood tests done to determine the level of this med in my blood stream. My last blood test was done in October of 2017 and the results of those blood tests showed a high concentration of Tegretol in my bloodstream. My National Health doctor cut my evening dose from 400 mg. to 200 mg.

Everyone in Italy has several doctors. My National Health doctor (Dottoressa Giovanna) prescribes medications and tests and deals with common maladies. She keeps tabs on my personal well-being. I also have my personal physician (Doctor Vincenzo Bacci, an American trained internist) and a neurologist (Professore Gino Bruno). I also see other specialists from time to time. When these other doctors proscribe meds or tests I take their recommendations to Dottoressa Giovanna who gives me official prescriptions for meds and testing. In this way I get free medical care through the excellent Italian National Health System.

By the time I got to the emergency room the seizure had passed and the doctor couldn’t tell what had happened. He admitted me to the hospital for tests.

Italian hospitals are spartan in comparison with their American counterparts In America everyone gets a private room, TV, phone service and lots of attentive nurses checking constantly and bringing you tea and coffee at all hours of the day or night. In the public hospitals in Italy there are no private rooms, no TV or phone service, no gardens to walk through or special facilities for visitors and family members. They also devote the most attention to the sickest patients. This is all part of good-quality cost-free single-payer health coverage and it makes perfect sense to me.

Since I was no longer in the midst of a seizure I was low on the totem pole as far as medical attention went. I spent my first night on a gurney in the cardiac ward. My room-mate was due for an oblation the next day and he snored like a champion. He sounded like someone strangling polar bear accompanied by a group of Eskimos whistling “It’s Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News. I couldn’t sleep and spent the entire night recording him on my phone using up all of my storage space.

On January 8th I was transferred to the Neurology ward where I finally had my own bed. My roommate was an elderly gentleman named Mimmo. At least Mimmo didn’t snore so I managed to sleep.

On the 9th Mimmo was released and a tall 6’2” Somalian refugee took his place. There didn’t seem to be much wrong with him, but Since Pope Francis made a strong stand in favour of refugees and since the hospital I was in is run by the church I think he was given a bed there for a few days. I never did get his real name straight, but the Jack Nicholas movie Regarding Schmidt came to mind so I’ll call my new room-mate Ndugu.

Ndugu was agitated. He immediately got up and started yelling “I GO GERMANY, I GO GERMANY and “EAT EAT EAT!” I assumed that he had made the treacherous voyage across the Mediterranean and was making his way towards Germany to start a new life like millions of other African and Middle Easterners who were fleeing war, ISIS and starvation.

The guy was obviously starving. He followed the nurses around shouting “SPAGHETTI, SPAGHETTI, SPAGHETTI!”
Most of the hospital staff was afraid of him because of his size and because he kept running up to them shouting “I GO GERMANY!” And “SPAGHETTI SPAGHETTI SPAGHETTI SPAGHETTI. I talked to him in a normal voice and he calmed down.

He told me he was from Somalia and that he had a lot of goats. He was proud of that.

They brought us dinner. Ndugu wolfed his down and started shouting about spaghetti again. I gave him half of my dinner.

He asked why I was in the hospital. The concept of an epileptic seizure was too much for him so I just told him I had “brain problems.” He perked right up and told me that he’d had brain problems for a long time but that he was better now. I didn’t know if we were bonding or if I was about to die.

NURSE, CHECK PLEASE!

I was the only one who could calm him down. He would get into the janitor’s closet, get a mop and start cleaning the floor. He was trying to pay for his keep in some small way. The nurses would get me to tell him to put the mop away and go lie down.

That night Ndugu slept like a baby while I was up tossing and turning. The thought of a 6’2” mentally defective refugee in the next bed made it difficult to sleep.

The next day I was exhausted having not slept in two of the last three nights.

As I lay in bed Ndugu asked me if I was going to Germany.

“No,” I told him jokingly. “I’m going to Calabria.”

He thought about that for a moment then said “You go Calabria, I go Calabria,” This poor hulking Somalian was looking for protection. I was touched.

Later that day the doctors came for my final interview. They confirmed my own suspicion that the seizure medication was the problem and they increased my evening dose of Tegretol to 300 mg. The MRI was unchanged from the one I’d had after my stroke.

Judy helped me pack my bag. Before leaving I shook Ndugu’s hand.

“I wish you a good life in Germany my friend.”

He told me to take care of my head.

This was my first contact with one of the millions of refugees currently flooding Europe.

 

 

Rome, January 21, 2018

©Paul Adam Goldfield 2018