Jessica in Rome

It started with a tightness in my chest and feeling like I couldn’t breathe. At 1am on Friday D drove me to the emergency room, since I didn’t want to take any chances. We pull up near the entrance and we made our way to the doors. Standing outside is about 30 people, a mixture of people waiting, doctors, nurses and EMTs all SMOKING right at the entrance to the ER. I was struggling to breathe as it was, and found it even more difficult with the wall of smoke acting as a barricade to the hospital. We went through the doors, which were left open, and the smoke followed us inside. We when to the nurses station and there was no one there. After 10 minutes one of the nurses from outside stomped her cigarette into the ground and came to the desk. We checked in and were told to wait. Nothing unusual about that in a emergency room. Then they said I would have to sit alone in the patient waiting area. I looked in and there was no chairs, no beds, just one room stuffed beyond capacity with patients in all stages of agony. I think the nurse saw the worried look on my face and told me I could stay with D in the “parents” waiting room. I chose this because there was at least a chair for me to sit in. The downside was this room had a door to the outside and there was about 10 people standing in front of it smoking. My general impression of the hospital was that it was dirty, there was garbage all over the waiting room and mysterious stains on the gray floors. The chairs were old and mostly broken. I kind of expected this, after all the health care is free (as in universal-I know we pay in taxes) and who knows what money is actually available for maintenance.

About 2 hours went by and I was called back to be seen. I entered into another large room, filled with mostly elderly patients laying on stretchers and the rest sitting in chairs or on the floor. Many were groaning in pain, and crying. D came with me because it was hard to speak loud enough to be heard over the other patients in my condition. D told the doctor sitting behind the desk that it was hard for me to breathe and my lungs hurt. She looked at us with disgust and asked me what language I spoke. I said “inglese” and then she wanted to know if I was on vacation. D said I was his wife and that I lived here. She began typing into the computer using only her pointer fingers. Then she said it was impossible for my lungs to hurt because they don’t have pain receptors. D said rather annoyingly that “her chest hurts then”. At that point scary doctor (the only doctor on shift that night, in a busy ER) said she wasn’t sure what they could do besides take my blood and maybe do x rays. Then she forced D to leave. I was taken behind this ratty curtain and told to lay on a this old looking bed. An assistant told me she needed to take my blood. She grabs my wrist and tells me not to move. She then puts a needle into my wrist right underneath my hand on the side where my thumb is. I have never had blood drawn from this area, and OH MY GOD it hurt so bad! After a few minutes she took even more blood from my inside elbow. The scary doctor came behind the curtain and “examined” me. I say that in quotes because she maybe listened to my chest for ten seconds, the whole time screaming at a nurse on the other side of the curtain. She disappears and the girl who took my blood then attempts an EKG. It was the old school machine with the knobby suction cups. None of them would stick to me, I think the suction cups were too worn out. So kept trying to force them and it hurt a lot being that my chest was already in pain. They ended up leaving little bruises all over me. During all of this, my wrist was throbbing. I asked if it was supposed to hurt so bad and she didn’t answer me. Then she told the scary doctor the EKG wasn’t functioning. She had me get up and stood me next to this blood pressure machine that was sitting near the floor. She put my arm in the cuff then walked away. So I stood in the middle of all the elderly patients in the room, with no chair, hunched over clutching my purse and jacket with my wrist that was swelling to twice it’s normal size. 10 minutes later she came back and directed me to sit in this dark hallway (no smokers yay). There were a few chairs, even more miserable looking than the ones in the waiting room. A girl next to me had all sorts of tubes sticking out of her and was shaking violently. She was in obvious pain. She pleaded to scary doctor when she walked by for help. She said she was too busy and what if a person with a heart attack was coming in? That didn’t make sense to me. I sat down and tried to drown out the noises around me.

About another 2 hours passed in the dark hallway. The combination of the unsteady chair, not being able to lie down, rest or talk to D made me feel worse. I wished I never came here. I peeled off the bandage on my wrist. My wrist was huge, black and hurt like a son of a bitch. I took the other bandage off of my arm to find a rash. I have sensitive skin and was probably allergic to the adhesive. I just wanted to leave.

After debating the pros and cons, I came to the conclusion that I’d rather die at home than stay in this god forsaken hospital for another second. I mustered up the courage and approached scary doctors desk. I asked if I could speak to my husband and she said absolutely not without giving me a reason. Not having strong command of Italian at the moment nor the energy to argue, I turned around back to my chair. Then I saw a guy at the end of the hallway who’d I’d seen in the “parents” waiting room. With a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one was looking, I very slowly walked as fast as my lungs would let me and found on the other side the waiting room. D saw and ran up to me. I burst into tears, showed him my wrist and dramatically told him I didn’t want to die in this hellhole. He agree and told me at this time in the morning we could just call our regular doctor. He told me to go back and sit tight. A few minutes later I hear a nurse come in and say the American girl’s husband wants to discharge her. I got up and went over to the nurse. She asked me if this was what I wanted and I said yes. Then scary doctor stated I didn’t understand and to bring D in here. Then they got into a yelling match where the doctor said I was impatient and didn’t want to wait my turn. D said it wasn’t that, it was just taking so long that we could get better treatment elsewhere. The doctor was furious that D was questioning her ability and then he said she hadn’t even performed a real exam on me and I have just gotten worse since being here. She threw together discharge papers and slammed them on the desk for me to sign. Then we left.

On the walk to the car I burst into tears again. I have never been treated so bad at a hospital before. I know my situation is probably minor to others, but it was scary to me at the time. Not being able to breath is never fun. All I want is to go to a hospital and get answers and help. Not to leave worse off. I don’t want to start a huge debate, I know doctors in Italy have a lot to overcome. I am not bashing the system as a whole, but there is some serious flaws in this hospital. I hope I never have to go back there.