Hospital India

Surviving India is about eating right and luck. No matter how careful you think you are, something will get you. Sometimes it's a minor annoyance and other times severe food poisoning. It was the latter for one of the team on this trip. Two days of severe upset plus medication and not wanting to drink water due to not wanting to go to the bathroom leads to extreme dehydration complete with muscle cramps. This was the scenario that led us to urgent care on  the third day. 

Anyone going here has to be really sick or mental. Anyhow after a short meeting with the doctor, antibiotics given it was off to the lab for blood to make sure nothing else was going on. This hospital was pretty clean but as soon as the blood was drawn the guy left the room and I could have done anything. I limited it  to a photo.

A few hours later the labs came in showing an elevated creatine level and the doctor recommend hospital admission. Not knowing better we went back and headed to the ER. In the assessment room, our person was given an IV for fluids. The "B" or "C" team is on at night and this resulted in painful needle stabs until the vein was located. Right next to us were the medical waste cans. Yellow is for human tissue, limbs, and fetus tissue. None of us looked.

Then the big mistake. We listened to over  cautious doctors and admitted our person to the hospital. The IV was left behind to reappear later and tossed on the table. More blood was painfully drawn. I slept on that couch (the other two went back to the hotel) because no one should ever be left alone in this  situation. Treatment was so disorganized. Doctors contradicted each other, updates not given to the nurses or staff and by 7:00 pm the next day we made the collective decision to self discharge. This was not easy and the doctor was so mad. The hospital was not treating the dehydration or taking food poisoning seriously but instead trying to determine the elevated creatine. All of us on this trip probably have high levels due to the survival diet we're on. 

Best decision - booking the private room. I am curious what the general ward conditions were like. Here, I could stay in the room, everyone could probably have stayed and no questions asked. Once we were free it was the right decision. I'm not sure why the universe wanted us to learn how to do this but I hope it's an isolated and not to be repeated incident.