The title of the post is the advice I was always given when I've lived in Greece. The private hospitals are actually fine, at least in my experience. Last night I paid another visit with a student who had an urgent but ultimately easily resolved problem. I don't want to talk about the illness, but the experience was fascinating.
We were in a taverna when it became clear that the student needed quick medical attention. We started by trying an ambulance, but then another patron who overheard what was happening came up to me, took my hands in hers, and said in limited English, "I think you should take a taxi. An ambulance will take you only to a public hospital, and I think your student will be better in a private hospital." She seemed really embarrassed and I don't know if it was because she was interfering or if it was because she was embarrassed by the state of Greek public hospitals. I took her advice, though and we cancelled the ambulance and called a taxi. Ten minutes later, we escorted the student into the taxi. I thought about how different things were from the 1990s when taxi drivers seemed to exert a lot more freedom over who they took and who they didn't. I'd been ignored by so many taxis when I was on crutches that I used to hide and let Phil hail the taxi and come out of the bushes on my crutches only once he was in the cab! Here the cabbie knew he was taking someone to the hospital which could be difficult or messy, and yet he came.
In the taxi it became clear that there was a need for speed after a few minutes. The cabbie put his hand on the student's shoulder and then began to honk urgently and sped up. To my amazement, the cars pulled over to the side to make room for him as he were an ambulance or police car. Then we got off the main road to a service road and two cars turned off the service road to get out of the way. I turned around as we passed and saw them both doubling back -- they'd actually done a circle to let us through faster. We took our final left against a light and in front of a policeman and got to the hospital. It was like in the movies when someone is having a baby or something in the back of a taxi and the cop gives an escort instead of a ticket, only there was no cop... just the incredible communication between Greek drivers and a mutual understanding of human need.
At the hospital things quickly resolved, leaving us time to chat with other people. There was a high proportion of English speakers among the other visitors to the late-night emergency room. One family from Britain was there because their adult daughter had needed a sudden emergency operation on the island of Kos. They'd been there a week, and were bedraggled but cheery. When I remarked on their good spirits in the middle of such a traumatic vacation, they said they were so relieved to be where they needed to be. They described the medical care on Kos as third world, and were so grateful to have made it to Athens. They'd wanted to be home, but their daughter was not yet able to be moved that far.
It was an emotionally wearing evening, and drove home two points to me:
On the one hand, the experience drove home the fragility of human beings and the incredible luck we have when things don't go wrong. It takes so little to put us at such tremendous risk. I love travel, and I am not a nervous traveler: I sent my boys abroad for a month without us at age 11 and my oldest is currently in Israel which is right now raining rocket attacks and I've not pulled him out. I am very able and willing to adapt to the mores of the other culture. But I am aware that travel includes some very serious risks. The weight of responsibility for taking students who have never traveled before seems quite heavy at times like tonight. And American students who haven't traveled can accidentally end up in trouble because they don't understand the language or the culture, and there are inevitable clashes that put them in danger. They don't expect the dangers of Greek life, being used to a more litigious and therefore safe world: No rails on many precarious sites, for instance, broken pavement on the narrow sidewalks, no accommodations for things like allergies or asthma, and generally a higher requirement for common sense which we seem determined to "dummy proof" against at home. They also are busy exploring the Greek drinking age and the different schedule with its emphasis on the cool nights, but with American ideas of what it means to drink and party. Taking students abroad is not all fun. I am on constant alert and having to pay attention to details of the students lives that I never have acknowledge at home at all.
On the other hand, I feel so grateful to be in a place where it is so easy for people to connect on that deep human level. Although Greece lacks a lot of the safety features and conveniences of the US, I feel that the ready connection between people is an incredible resource that we lack at home. Someone would be angry at my presumption of urgency not move out of the way if I were to lay on my horn while trying to rush someone to the hospital. Strangers wouldn't leap the boundaries of privacy and offer unsolicited advice very often. People don't come out of their shops to help lost buses turn around. The distance between people in the US and the fear of being involved in someone else's problems keeps us isolated from what seems to me always to be our best resource... the ingenuity and manpower of our community.
We were in a taverna when it became clear that the student needed quick medical attention. We started by trying an ambulance, but then another patron who overheard what was happening came up to me, took my hands in hers, and said in limited English, "I think you should take a taxi. An ambulance will take you only to a public hospital, and I think your student will be better in a private hospital." She seemed really embarrassed and I don't know if it was because she was interfering or if it was because she was embarrassed by the state of Greek public hospitals. I took her advice, though and we cancelled the ambulance and called a taxi. Ten minutes later, we escorted the student into the taxi. I thought about how different things were from the 1990s when taxi drivers seemed to exert a lot more freedom over who they took and who they didn't. I'd been ignored by so many taxis when I was on crutches that I used to hide and let Phil hail the taxi and come out of the bushes on my crutches only once he was in the cab! Here the cabbie knew he was taking someone to the hospital which could be difficult or messy, and yet he came.
In the taxi it became clear that there was a need for speed after a few minutes. The cabbie put his hand on the student's shoulder and then began to honk urgently and sped up. To my amazement, the cars pulled over to the side to make room for him as he were an ambulance or police car. Then we got off the main road to a service road and two cars turned off the service road to get out of the way. I turned around as we passed and saw them both doubling back -- they'd actually done a circle to let us through faster. We took our final left against a light and in front of a policeman and got to the hospital. It was like in the movies when someone is having a baby or something in the back of a taxi and the cop gives an escort instead of a ticket, only there was no cop... just the incredible communication between Greek drivers and a mutual understanding of human need.
At the hospital things quickly resolved, leaving us time to chat with other people. There was a high proportion of English speakers among the other visitors to the late-night emergency room. One family from Britain was there because their adult daughter had needed a sudden emergency operation on the island of Kos. They'd been there a week, and were bedraggled but cheery. When I remarked on their good spirits in the middle of such a traumatic vacation, they said they were so relieved to be where they needed to be. They described the medical care on Kos as third world, and were so grateful to have made it to Athens. They'd wanted to be home, but their daughter was not yet able to be moved that far.
It was an emotionally wearing evening, and drove home two points to me:
On the one hand, the experience drove home the fragility of human beings and the incredible luck we have when things don't go wrong. It takes so little to put us at such tremendous risk. I love travel, and I am not a nervous traveler: I sent my boys abroad for a month without us at age 11 and my oldest is currently in Israel which is right now raining rocket attacks and I've not pulled him out. I am very able and willing to adapt to the mores of the other culture. But I am aware that travel includes some very serious risks. The weight of responsibility for taking students who have never traveled before seems quite heavy at times like tonight. And American students who haven't traveled can accidentally end up in trouble because they don't understand the language or the culture, and there are inevitable clashes that put them in danger. They don't expect the dangers of Greek life, being used to a more litigious and therefore safe world: No rails on many precarious sites, for instance, broken pavement on the narrow sidewalks, no accommodations for things like allergies or asthma, and generally a higher requirement for common sense which we seem determined to "dummy proof" against at home. They also are busy exploring the Greek drinking age and the different schedule with its emphasis on the cool nights, but with American ideas of what it means to drink and party. Taking students abroad is not all fun. I am on constant alert and having to pay attention to details of the students lives that I never have acknowledge at home at all.
On the other hand, I feel so grateful to be in a place where it is so easy for people to connect on that deep human level. Although Greece lacks a lot of the safety features and conveniences of the US, I feel that the ready connection between people is an incredible resource that we lack at home. Someone would be angry at my presumption of urgency not move out of the way if I were to lay on my horn while trying to rush someone to the hospital. Strangers wouldn't leap the boundaries of privacy and offer unsolicited advice very often. People don't come out of their shops to help lost buses turn around. The distance between people in the US and the fear of being involved in someone else's problems keeps us isolated from what seems to me always to be our best resource... the ingenuity and manpower of our community.
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