Murder is Everywhere: Greek Healthcare

I’m sitting here in a doctor’s office on Mykonos, an orthopedist to be precise. Nothing serious, just a war injury. Okay, so not a war injury, a battle wound. Sort of.

It’s one of those injuries for which I won’t earn a purple heart…though possibly a “mysterious black heart” is in the offing. After all, I sustained it in close quarters literary combat with poets, not as one of those self-inflicted carpel tunnel sorts incurred in conflict with oneself across a keyboard.

Notice my right elbow.

No, mine came from a higher form of sacrifice: Active-duty panel service.

Bet you didn’t know that three hours of sitting in front of an audience listening to a mass of foreign languages you don’t understand could lead to physical injury. And I’m not talking about fingernails torn off trying to maintain an air of concerned interest over words you do not understand as others continually cheer and applaud.

I’m talking about the kind earned through three solid hours of leaning forward across a table, elbows resting strategically on the tabletop in an effort to maintain that appearance of dedicated interest—taking care all the while to shift often in your chair so that your back does not make the same ultimate sacrifice as your psyche.

Imagine my surprise to wake up the next morning with a fevered bump the size of a golf ball on one elbow. No exaggeration. Exaggeration would be a tennis ball. I shall spare you my photographs validating my description.

My first thought: How do I get to Athens? And back to the US? This is not my home island of Mykonos, there is no airport on Tinos, and a boat ride out of here to anyplace where I know doctors will take hours. By then my elbow will have exploded. [Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but Barbara likes that line as a description of my mood, so I’ll leave it in.]

Second thought, call for help. So, I reach my buddy on Mykonos who puts me in touch with a mutual friend on Tinos who immediately leaves her business to come to my hotel and take me to the public clinic. [Thanks again, Eleni.]

Wait a minute. “Did I hear you say ‘public clinic’?” I asked. That’s for folks who can’t afford private doctors.

She says, “They’re the best, they’re used to dealing with everything.”

Imagine the emergency ward of a major US city at its busiest. But this is an island town on a Friday morning. No reason to ask why it’s so busy as I already know the answer: Greece is in crisis, people can’t afford private clinics.

My friend sees the line at the far end of the hospital corridor, scoots ahead to collar the doctor waving for the next patient, points at my elbow and asks, “Is this the right line?”

There’s a special elbow line?

He gestures no in Greek—mistaken often by Americans for yes—and points back down the hall in the direction from whence we came. So we’re off to knock on a door designated orthopedics A Greek-style Tommy Lee Jones sort of character shouts “Come in,” takes a one look at my elbow, points in the general direction of the entrance to the building and says “five euros.” My friend and Barbara leave and I start to follow but he says, “not you,” and points for me to sit in the corridor outside his office.

A moment later Tommy comes out of his office walks past me waving for me to accompany him, and yells out a woman’s name. Like the Pied Piper, I follow him down the hall into an operating room. It’s Tommy, Barbara, our friend, a nurse, and me.

“Sit,” he says pointing me toward the operating table.

I do, and before I can say, “Let’s talk about whatever you have in mind…and in English…” he says, in English far better than my Greek, “You have an inflamed bursa, which is a fluid-filled sack between your elbow’s bone and skin that allows the elbow to move freely beneath the skin. My guess is you’ve been sitting with your elbows propped up on a tabletop.”

CSI had nothing on this guy.

I confessed, and told all.

“Oh, a writer. So, here’s the deal. I drain the cyst of the excess fluid, give you a cortisone shot, wrap it, and send you home.”

“What’s behind door number two?” [I really didn’t put it that way.]

“There’s no other door except ice, Advil, and waiting it out, but that can lead to other complications.”

So I agreed, he did the procedure WITHOUT A BIT OF PAPERWORK signed by me, and I was on my way. I asked how much I owed.

He said, “You already paid it.”

Five euros!! Dare anyone venture to guess what all that would have cost me in the US?

Okay, that was a public hospital. But as soon as we returned to Mykonos, Barbara insisted I see a specialist here. I battled her. She won. Surprise.

So a week ago I went to see this highly recommended orthopedist. He’s new to the island but well respected. His office is modern, neat, with Brahms playing in the background. All the trappings of, “This one ain’t gonna cost you five euros, Jeffrey.”

Not quite like this, but you get the idea.

He looked at my elbow, said the other doctor had done the right thing, told me to leave off the bandage, take Advil twice a day, ice it three it times a day, and see him in a week.

I asked how much I owed him for the visit, and he said, “We’ll talk about that when you come back.” From past experience, that sort of comment did not bode well for financial demands to come.

Now the week has passed and I’m back in his office. Waiting to hear the prognosis. And the price.

Whoops it’s my turn. I’ll let you know what happens…

I’m back. Good news. He said it’s getting better, that I should keep up with the ice, stop the Advil, and never see him again.

So I pop the $64 question—or more likely the $6400 question if asked of a US orthopedist—“How much do I owe you?”

He tells me.

I was right. It’s not five euros.

“You owe me nothing. I didn’t do anything for you but look at someone else’s work.”

Can you image a specialist in the US ever saying something like that? I mean ever.

My total cost for three doctor visits, two doctors (not counting the one who pointed me down the hall—a consultation in the US), use of an operating room and surgical nurse, the surgical procedure, cortisone shot, bandages and assorted ointments…FIVE EUROS.