'Settling' in Buenos Aires

Otorrinolaringológica

Hi up there,

Well it is good news and bad news (with some good news tacked on to the bad news too). The good news is that I am fairly certain that I shall sign for my apartment rental in Recoleta on Friday at 11:00AM local time, which means I move in on Monday alone so if you are thinking of visiting this is the time to do it before I get room-mates. I have given all of my UBA paperwork and the offices are going through the motions and there have been no major upsets to date but no news either. My Spanish is improving quite nicely and I've re-written the Web site at http://projectallende.org/ to better represent what's going on with me now, to promote the book I'm trying to write: "Drive Américas", and to encompass this little blog from Buenos Aires -- my steadfast attempt to torture you all with my little whims from the Southern Hemisphere.

All right! Enough of the good news, now for "Otorrinolaringológica".

"Otorrinolaringológica" was yesterday's little trial. Yet another introduction to yet another Latin American health system. One nasty side effect of staying in the tango hostel, (no I'm not the longest-term resident yet), is the extraordinary variations in temperature combined with the lack of A/C means that as autumn comes on, and the leaves turn yellow here in Palermo Soho. The temperature has been fluctuating from 30 degrees centigrade to just 10 in a single day.

So there are all these Europeans passing through from the northern Winter, and there's lots of drinking, carousing (not to mention a few other matters) and what happens? Of course! A plague of flu, what else? So after three days of trying to deal with this on my own I could hardly swallow and I decided that the ear-ache warranted a visit to the doctor so off I went yesterday morning.

But wait! This is a pretty large city to find a doctor in. There are millions of doctors in Buenos Aires and hundreds of hospitals so how to find an ear, nose and throat specialist? Where does one begin without health insurance or even a clue how the system works? And what, for that matter is ear nose and throat in Spainsh, (ahh you guessed it).

So because I'm a guy and i don't like to ask for things I began with the Internet which lead to the wonderful word "otorrinolaringología (nf), estudio de las enfermedades del oído, la nariz y la garganta (pop)". An otorrino is a 'ear, nose and throat' specialist ("oído, la nariz y la garganta" in Spanish). So having wasted a lot of time finding out what I wanted to find I asked the young guys who work here at the hostel where I should go and they sent me to "Hospital Fernandez" because it is local and it has both private and public care.

Off in a taxi I go! Sure I like to see how socialism works from the inside but I hate to queue when I'm sick so; at first I tried to find the private section, then I gave up and joined the line at midday having been rejected by emergency.

This line turned out to be the overspill line for those seeking specialist appointments without a reservation. It forms around lunchtime after the ticket system closes at 11:00AM. I'd missed the ticket system which would have allowed me to stop out for breakfast, come back and wait for my number. So I stood there sweating in the hallway trying no to feel sorry for myself and chatted with the ladies around me. One had broken their leg while falling off a bus, another had a grotesquely swollen chin from being hit (by what I was delicate enough not to ask, for once). She was kind of hard to understand with the bandage anyway (nearly as difficult as am I).

So after an hour, when the ticket appointments finished and the waiting area emptied, our line began to move and I got to the window where I had first made an enquiry about my sore throat. The smart lady behind the counter gave me a piece of paper. She remembered the gringo with the rasping voice, and she instantly gave me an appointment with the ear, nose and throat specialist: Dra. Beatriz in ten minutes time!

I was chuffed! I was fully prepared to have to return later in the week. The doctor saw me after a half hour, apologizing for the delay which she put down to all of the countrypeople coming in for care. She listened to my pathetic Spanish explanations of what I thought was wrong then she delivered her diagnosis and explained that the sinusitis was the first thing to fix then we'll tackle the base cause in the sinuses themselves after fixing the infection that was causing the sore throat.

Why hasn't this happened anywhere in the last ten years? Maybe finally I can get treated for my sinus problems which have plagued me for a while. I went back to the window and set up my appointment for two weeks out and went to get my antibiotics and antihistamines. It had been a good day and I rewarded myself with a fabulous three-course lunch seated beside a group of cheerful doctors.

For those of you in the US who are plagued by a broken health system and double charges for everything you might be interested that the whole things cost.

A$6(Taxi to hospital),
A$20(Prescription filled for both Claritin and Amoxycillin generics)
and A$15 for lunch and tip.

Total USD$14.00

Gracias, Buenos Aires and Hospital Fernandez!
Tony

Posted by Tony Phillips at April 5, 2006 10:23 PM