Falling Back, 57. A Drafty Night.

Last night was our first encounter with the hospital Emergency Room during the pandemic.

Last week, my husband jumped the wrong way down from his company's truck, and his bad knee became swollen and tender. On Friday evening, since it wasn't better, we went to the local clinic after hours. He was given an anti-inflammatory medication and told to return if it didn't get better.

Last night, it seemed worse, with his lower leg swollen and red, so we returned to the clinic. The same doctor was there, doing the night emergency visits, and she gave him a paper and told him to go to the E.R. at Santiago's Clinical Hospital to get it checked out. Our clinic may be new, but it has neither radiology nor blood lab.

So, we drove up, paper from the doctor at the ready in case we were stopped when we reached the township of Teo, en route to Santiago and also quarantined. But there were no obvious green-blue lights, nor bright yellow reflective vests. In fact, I've never seen such little traffic on a Sunday night headed into Santiago. Normally, students return to their apartments as late as possible on Sunday night, and long lines of headlights make the march into town. But not last night.

We had no problem parking near the entrance to the E.R., either. Though, since there are no outpatient clinics open on the weekends, it's generally easy to find a decent place to park then. The surprise was when we entered the E.R.

Over the years, I have gotten to know the place, and can find my way around with an air of absolutely knowing where I'm going, so am never challenged. However, I have thankfully avoided stepping inside it since my father passed away, over three years ago. The pandemic has further changed things. Now, the window at reception is completely closed, and the receptionist hands us the necessary stickers and bracelet through an opening covered with a stiff plastic. Now, patients also receive a paper with a number, which is used to convene them to their respective consulting rooms, and which should be kept as long as the visit lasts. You are now a number. 

Triage is still the same, though, with the only change that the waiting room has been split between triage and consulting rooms, with different screens in each area. What has changed is the number of people waiting.

On weekend nights, the place is normally crawling with people who arrive with one complaint or another, from a hangnail to a serious fever. Alcoholic comas tend to pop up late into the evening. I still remember one night with my father in a room with heart monitors. After the trickle of patients waiting to get into boxes had diminished, a gurney with a young girl reached the top of the hall. The nurse kept asking how she was feeling. The girl asked for a bucket and duly threw up, then fell asleep. When a box was empty, and her gurney had the brakes taken off to move her, the nurse asked her how much she had drunk. I didn't hear the answer, but it must have been a fine one. Last night there was nothing of the kind.

There were very, very few people. In contrast, there were student nurses alongside the regulars, being taught the ropes. There is a shortage of nurses now, and all those who are working have had vacations and time off revoked for the time being. Student nurses are also being pressed into service. Our visit proceeded at the normal snail's pace, though. The first consult, the x-ray, and the lab visit were done in the first two hours. After that, we had to wait for the results long into the early morning hours. 

In the larger section of the waiting room, there was a small area partitioned off with moveable partitions. Behind it was a consulting room, and the doorway through which people used to go to the E.R. radiology, ophthalmology, and other areas. That door was now blocked, the handle taken off. We had to go another way to radiology, and while waiting outside in the hall for my husband, I put on my glasses briefly to find out the reason why. 

There were signs on the doors at the end, warning people there was danger on the other side. That must be where they take people with suspected cases of Covid. I assume that in the back, by the boxes, the other entrance must also be blocked off somehow, though it's more difficult there because there are no doors. A doctor with PPE was standing in the doorway, talking with the nurses from time to time. Few suspicious cases must be showing up in the E.R.

Back in the waiting room, we waited as well we could. We had both taken books, so we could while away the time. As the night went on, though, I could feel a draft. I looked around. There were windows open, and the night, rainy and windy, could be heard outside. The hospital, built about thirty years ago, had no provision for ventilation in the waiting room, so the mantra of ventilation in public spaces meant that the windows had to be opened. Normally, the heat is so high, people peel off outer clothing and any upper layer. Not now. It seemed that the new motto of the hospital is, "sick people, sit in the draft and get a little sicker." It got so, that I curled up and wished the windows would stop blowing on me. It wasn't cold, but the continuous flow of air was very bothersome.

In the end, everything was fine, just swelling from the knee which hadn't gone down adequately. A different anti-inflammatory medication was written out, my husband told to raise his leg in the evenings, and we could go home. When we got in the car, my husband kept the paper he had been given, ready to be shown to any officious policeman.

But there weren't any. The curfew of 11PM to 6AM is still in vigor, though, which meant a drive home that would have been fast if it hadn't been raining. There were no other cars going in our direction, and we only crossed paths with four other cars and a van in the entire thirty-plus kilometers we drove home. We discussed that, most likely, there wouldn't be any radar traps, so in the moments the rain let me, I floored it. It felt so free!

Life continues.