During the early hours of Saturday, I had to take a dear friend of mine to the hospital to receive emergency treatment. Hospital I hate passionately. This time I had to endure. Here comes the real story. Let me break the hospital experiences down for you wai.
1. Walking barefooted
For starters, I grabbed a cab with relatives of mine and headed for the Tema General Hospital for serious business. By the time the taxi virtually flew from home and landed at the hospital, the pair of slippers I recall wearing from home was torn. Yawa kwraaa. Oh de3 oh. Hard guy things; I comot my eye kwraaa for everybody (pardon my pidgin. Back to fine grammar). For over thirty minutes, I walked to and fro without regarding onlookers or noticing that something wasn’t alright downstairs. Ebe hospital I come. No be so?
2. The meaning of medical terms
I met a nice nurse who assisted me by running most of the errands I was supposed to. Call that God at work.
So I stood by my (new) nurse friend as she educated me on the medical business that brought me to the hospital. Another nurse walked to her, pointed at a woman lying on a stretcher and whispered, “Hmmmmmm, its DBA o” (with the assumption I wouldn’t understand). And of course, I didn’t see how the DBA I knew as Diploma in Business Administration mattered in a hospital case. Before I could rack my brains any further, wails from a section of the Out Patient Department(OPD) disrupted me.
From the look of things, no one needed to tell me DBA meant ‘Dead Before Arrival’. As I noticed moisture gathering in my eye, I quickly dabbed the corner of my right eye with a hanky before I’m branded a cry-baby. Deep within, I was very emo ruff. Ewiase (this world).
I later found out the DBA I thought I heard was rather Death on Arrival (DOA). Charlie konkonsa can make boys hear what they want to hear o. Anyways.
3. Hospital Attitudes
If it makes you feel any better, the friend I mentioned as bringing to the hospital was yet to be attended to. Some hospital attendant said she couldn’t find the patient’s folder. And I said in my head “what nonsense”. Because of a single folder that couldn’t be located (by not fault of ours), the patient had to wait over thirty minutes. Don’t I love the public healthcare system in Ghana?
Finally when the card was found, we were asked to go with the patient to a certain room for biometric verification. Sighing was all I could do. Oh, as for the insults, I insulted them well well in my head.
With the OPD death ringing fresh in my mind, I prayed the delays in the system wouldn’t cause any patient to die.
Make I drop the matter here; BNI fuor w) krom.
I must also mention some of the attendants were extremely helpful.
4 Hospital Main Dispensary
Long and stagnant queues greeted me at the dispensary when I went to get a simple drip. The place was extra packed with people who were patiently waiting their turn. From the annoyed face people wore in there, no one told me to sit still. Amidst the waiting, insults were heaped on the attendance for their go slowness. In my head, I was happy ruff.
5 Good health et al
In conclusion, I’m back home a happy man. Thanks for helping me kill the boredom at the hospital. As you read each of the lines, you kept me occupied and spared me the worries. U be too much wati. Lol.
NB: I wrote this on the go; pardon all typos wai. Eno be me o! lol.
A Ghanaian Hospital Story
