The last thing you need on holiday is…..being sick 😵😓

This is what I’ve (and all visitors) been trying to avoid, to fall sick in India. But when you fall sick, heigh ho. Hope that you will live to tell.

Down with fever & chest infection. I guess my ancient body is not made for Indian winter. The air is so polluted especially in Agra & first 2 days in Gwalior.

Off to a private hospital nearby our hotel, Navjee Van Hospital in Gwalior. See nurses for blood pressure & body temperature. 6 of them seem to agree that I have fever.

15 minutes later I am ushered into a consultancy room.

Me: Good morning doctor.

No response. How rude.

Doc : Is it high or low fever?

This is first time a doc asks this kind of question.

Me: I don’t know. I don’t know what high fewer or low fewer is.
Doc (irritated, impatient tone): You feel cold or hot?
Me: My body is hot but I feel cold.
Doc: Do you smoke?
Me: I used to.

It is not quite true but not quite a lie either. I have not been smoking since Mumbai. Except for 2 sticks after Mumbai. I guess that qualifies for “used to be a smoker”

Then he says they need to check on my blood & urine samples plus chest x-ray. Very thorough. And that thoroughness rings the alarm bell to not be another victim of the world-famous Indian scam where the more prescribed meds you take, the sicker you get. And you go back to see doc for more check ups and your bill mounts.

He writes down 5 types of meds for a 3-day period. Before I exit his room, he says consultancy fee is 300 rupees. What consultancy? is what I want to ask. Instead I ask if I should pay him now. He says yes. I give him 500 rupees. He is not too happy to have to fish 200 rupees change from his wallet. Well, it’s not my job to give you the exact change, Doc. He wallets the 300 rupees. No receipt.

Then his assistant (or rather… slave) takes me to the cashier. 950 rupees for all the procedures. Very cheap for Malaysian standard. Back to the 6 nurses to draw a tube of blood from my arm. I give my urine sample to them soon after. To radiography dept. after that.

The assistant knocks on one door. A very grumpy man who obviously has been awoken from his sleep, unlocks the door. Herds me to a room next to his napping room. X-rayed. He gives me the black & white negative. He disappears back into the other room. I don’t want to guess that he’s going back to sleep.

Collect my prescription for 210 rupees. Then they ask me to come back 1 hour later to check on the results of blood & urine tests plus chest x-ray. I come back 1.5 hours later.

“Twenty minutes,” says one of the nurses, a young woman who prefers to speak Hindi. Or if she speaks in English, her favourite line is “Twenty Minutes”. Half an hour later a med assistant calls for me. He hands me the results of the test. And asks me to wait 20 minutes for doc.

Half an hour later I ask the same nurse if the doc is coming. She dials or pretends to dial some number. She hangs up and says 20 minutes. In the meantime I go to a cafe next door for nan bread.

Come back to check with the same nurse again. She repeats the phone dialing act again. Twenty minutes, she says. The other woman, middle age, plump, very friendly, must be a hospital assistant, gestures the having-meal sign.

After twenty minutes too many, I give up and walk back to my hotel. And may be saving another 300 rupees of “consultancy fees” and many more of “twenty minutes”