Hospitalization ordeal in Turkey (1)

BELGİN AKALTAN - belgin.akaltan@hdn.com.tr

State hospitals provide you (almost) the best medical treatment, but they may be lacking in hygiene, patient relations, patient relations and patient relations. Yes, three times.

“For a wisp of breath in health…” This is part of the famous quotation of Süleyman the Magnificent while he was dying. He said, “No kingdom exists in this world that is worth a wisp of breath in health.” The ruler of half of the world was emphasizing that nothing, no prosperity is worth a breath in health.

Actually, he said “devlet,” literally meaning “state” in Turkish, but he meant all the values of a state, metaphorically meaning the bliss, the happiness of a wisp of healthy breath has no equivalent in material terms, like saying, “There is nothing more worthy of one healthy breath in this world.” Sultan Süleyman died before an Ottoman victory at the Battle of Szigetvár in Hungary in 1566.

Yes, you guessed it right. I have a medical issue. I will have a minor or maybe medium-minor operation in one of Istanbul’s biggest and best state hospitals. Yes, when I said “state hospital” I know some of you hesitated…

Those who live in Istanbul and those who are Turkish know the distinction between a state hospital and a private hospital. In private hospitals, foundation hospitals or those that have a foreign name, you are very well taken care of, you are treated well, everyone is nice to you, the environment is hygienic and you receive medical care. Everything is nice, except that you may or may not have doubts about the medical treatment. Some of these private hospitals are perfect, from hygiene and patient treatment to medical care. Others are not so much, especially by medical standards.

State hospitals provide you (almost) the best medical treatment, but they may be lacking in hygiene, patient relations, patient relations and patient relations. Yes, three times.

I mean, I know hospitals are not five star hotels and you are not there for a good stay and good service. But the degree of inhumanity and red tape is unbelievable. You may be scolded by a “nobody” of your grandchild’s age because a signature is missing, or a cancer patient may be left standing in a line of 40 people.

Why would one choose to go and be humiliated in a state hospital? There could be several reasons: You may not be aware of what’s waiting for you. You might have a pleasant shock and see the hospital has changed for the best like the Göztepe SSK, with its old name, the one on the Asian side of Istanbul… There could be monetary reasons. My case is my best friend is there…

I really can’t explain well enough what kind of belittling you receive there. One example: My cleaner is pregnant with her fourth baby and she is trying to collect enough money so she can give birth at a private hospital. She has pledged to herself to never give birth in a state hospital. She makes us laugh every time when she caricaturizes what she went through while she was giving birth to her third child at a state hospital. All her private parts were exposed during her labor and I guess it was cleaning time for the hospital when a male janitor entered the room to wipe the floors. He kept staring at her vagina, then at the floor, then back at her vagina, then at the floor, then again and again…

This is what I mean. As a patient, as an accompaniment of a patient (Yes, this is a very Turkish concept). There has to be an accompaniment (refakatçi) of a patient who has to do everything for the patient, including dressing the wounds, and eventually get sick her or himself.

During the last three days I spent in the hospital to have my pre-operation tests, checks and clearance from several departments, what I saw has been this: The doctors, actually the younger doctors – because the more senior ones are just giving orders and the younger ones are just trying to follow orders – well, the young doctors are trying to fill in forms, trying to file them, trying to process them in the computer with the help of several other medical personnel. Then make phone calls, etc., trying to fix appointments. Then ask around if they have done the bureaucratic procedure correctly and if they have selected the code correctly, etc. And in their remaining time they scold you and treat you like you were an idiot…

You can’t believe the amount of bureaucracy. I mean and I really mean this, if you were to hold a two-hour course for all the personnel in state hospitals including secretaries, receptionists, doctors, interns, nurses, caretakers, professors and even patients and their attendants in how to fill a form, how to file efficiently, how to read and write and how to speak to a patient, then the doctors would have five hours of free time every day. If filling forms, processing them on the computer and looking for keys, for files, for the nurse, for the person who has the file or the key took less time, then they would be able to focus more on medical affairs. Nothing in real life is like “House” or “ER” or any other equivalent Turkish soap opera. I wish I could make a documentary about Turkish hospitals…  
The biggest issue for a newcomer is going from one department to the other. It is simply impossible. You can’t. You are bound to be lost on the way. Half of the shift in big state hospitals is spent telling people where to go and asking where the hell the place you are looking for is. Your IQ drops to levels you cannot even believe yourself. You can’t have the simplest direction told to you; maybe because of the negative atmosphere all over the place. You just want to cry and become sicker.

Yes, there are signs all around, but they are either old, not valid anymore or wrong. Or too complicated, or not in the right place, or you are so confused and stupefied by the time you are reading the sign, you either miss it, misinterpret it, the sign does not mean a thing to you or you just don’t bother to read it.

And to make the scene more ridiculous, there are visiting Erasmus students or interns, who look more like they are from the moon than you are. There are young women who are clearly from a Scandinavian country and young men who are clearly from an African country. Be sure that I will interview them before I am discharged and ask them, “What the hell are you doing in this hell?”

I will have to stop writing here because I am in my hospital bed after three days of pre-operation preparations. And after three days of being humiliated I feel like a small cockroach, not even a big one. A bigger cockroach can come and bite me…

To be continued… 


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