Round-about Al Ain

I know, I know, I have been MIA for a while; in fact I am ashamed to see how long it has been since the last time I posted. I had intended to post at least semi regularly, and somewhere along the road I stopped.
But now I think I need to get back into the game.
I am probably the ‘Kewell’ of blogging – so don’t expect me to be consistent ….

There’s so much to say which means so much to type and that means I will just do it in little bits.

I will start by apologising to all my friends and family for being so anti social. I haven’t had proper internet for a long time – we moved house and everything kind of took a back seat.
I tell you something, I hate moving house. The trauma of living between two places, eating junk morning noon and night, tramping around in dirty clothe in what seemed like forever, and lugging around boxes of furniture and ourselves in a country where we cant speak the local lingo is not a piece of pie. I guess I had this romanticised notion of living in the same house till I finally put out an old rocking chair on the front porch. Who am I kidding?
Its good for the soul though, not to get used to being in one place too long, not get accustomed to certain ways and form habits over long periods of time.

Anyway Alhumdulillah we got through it, and here I am. Still breathing, and not to mention, profusely sweating in the ever increasing heat. The temperature has hit the 40’s and even 50 at one point.

Ok a back blog.
Just before we moved, my two year got ill, and initially had no symptoms apart from intermittent fever. After a few days it became a little more persistent, and he began looking like a wilting flower. A couple of days on it was much worse despite the medicine we were giving, and one day at four in the morning after checking him, I woke the old man and said it was time we got help. The said old man kindly shoved work on the back burner and drove the three of us to Al Noor hospital which was only a few minutes drive away.

I was very curious to observe the process here in such cases, and how they are ‘handled’ out here. I felt a little anxious as I know the drill of what to do and what happens when your child gets ill back in the UK, but here I hadn’t the faintest idea.

We were told to go upstairs and wait in certain area. So we found ourselves waiting outside a doctors room for about a half hour, watching various people go in and out with their children.
Our turn came and we went to see the Doc. She was a middle aged Arab lady and spoke fairly good English. People milled in out of the room – nurses and such types
One woman stood annoyingly in front of the mirror doing her hair and make up. I found this very strange. I found the whole concept of people in and out of the room quite inappropriate.
Anyway, the Doc checked my son’s temperature, eyes, throat and chest.
It was bit difficult getting immediate information, but some prompting led us to understand he needed a nebuliser. After having him ‘nebulised’ we were told go downstairs for blood test and x-rays – then back up to the Doc with the results.
Wow I thought.

So we nebulised (is that even a word?) the poor mite through his blatant discomfort, then off we went for blood tests, and then we had to wait for the x-ray as there was a hefty queue, and before I knew it, the old man took the little man and they got it done in a jiffy.
Now we just had to pick up the x-ray results. I sat in a comfy chair in the long and filled corridor out side the x-ray department, by this time I was exhausted and at some point I dozed off on my sons shoulder while he dozed off on mine.
Hubby collected our results and once I awoke I was amazed to see my child’s x-ray and results sheet. It had all sorts of medical mumbo jumbo, some of it I understood, some I didn’t but all praises to Allah it was all good.

We took all our results back upstairs and to the Arab Doc who then told us it was a chest infection, and wrote all sorts of medicines on a prescription which we collected on the way out downstairs after paying our fees – 200aed
It was quite amazing – I was taken aback to experience this process – I mean back home you go to the docs and you get a quick basic check, sometimes not even that, many doctors grunt at you (although to be fair I have had some very good doctors in the past) and send you on your way within two minutes flat.
If you need an x-ray or bloods doing you get an appointment which usually takes a couple of weeks to do and obtain results.

Now I don’t know if this is the procedure every time, or whether this was a one off, but it was an eye opener to witness so many different things happening so quickly.

I’m not exactly sure how the health care system works here, and am interested to find out if anyone can explain?
We ‘foreigners’ have to obtain health insurance here, and depending on who your provider is, most things are free.
Some companies make you pay for your first check up and then its free, others don’t include dental etc. And there’s usually a selection of hospitals to chose from where you can go when you are sick.

Do Emirati’s have to pay for medical insurance or are they privy to free healthcare? I would hazard a guess at free as since the above episode, I had to go to hospital, and went to the very nice and plush Tawwam hospital, where we were told we would have to pay 400 AED for a basic check up, since we weren’t Emirati and couldn’t have it free, and neither did they accept our insurance. So I ended up at Oasis instead where I was charged less than half that.
What about the rest of the non Emirati Arabs? And the workers/maids etc? What do they have to pay?

I found the experience of going to hospital here just plain strange. It was very good to be able to get such a thorough check up for my child. And my husband has had to go to the hospital many times since we have been here and I know he has been generally very impressed with the speed and delivery of service he has received here.
I think the downside for me is that you lose the personal interaction and relationship with this method that you can otherwise gain with a family GP. For example my parents two GP’s have known them for years and know them well enough to understand what they need and how to help them.
I know when I have had good GP’s, I have been able to visit them with comfort and ease no matter what the reason for my visit, and been able to develop a trust sound patient to doctor relationship with them.
Here, you have to report at reception and explain what the ‘problem’ is for them to then direct you to the appropriate department. So the first hurdle is having to explain your intimate issues with a stranger, who then directs you to a doctor you don’t know – another stranger.

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to this system as with any other.

Has anyone seen the Michael Moore documentary ‘Sicko’? I saw it recently and found it both horrific and fascinating.
The American healthcare system seems to be (from that docu) in a pitiful state – the nation which prides itself in being the ‘superpower’.
It’s an eye opening view into the highly profitable health care system in America with approx 45million people without health care. 9 million of those are children. The documentary follows people who are un-eligible for healthcare, but are very ill, or have lost loved ones.
Michael Moore documentaries are really not to be missed, not just in the issues he tackles but the way in which he carries out his research.

Barack Obama has amongst other things, pledged to make health care available to all 45 million Americans and to ensure flexible plans are available to all if he gets elected.

We wait and see.

Ps It’s taken me ages to post this too…it’s been sitting in my ‘word’ file for ages….