You would think that after living in Tonga for almost 4 years, there is nothing that can surprise me anymore. Then again, a volunteer from Samoa said to us the other day, any sentence you want to begin with "You would think that ..." when you live in this part of the world, you can forget about straight away. He was right.
A few weeks ago we had to get our annual health check done and while I normally prefer to do this at home, this time we couldn't get around doing it in the Ha'apai hospital. At this point it should be mentioned that you don't really want to go the Ha'apai hospital unless you want to come out in a wooden box. A volunteer here once suffered from dengue fever and was admitted to hospital and only narrowly escaped a lethal overdose of morphine because his wife somehow thought that the prescribed dose was too high. Well, our condition was by far not as critical, so off we went to see the doctor.
After a waiting time of 3 hours, the nurse finally said we could go to see the doctor in the blood lab. We opened the door and there was someone lying on a hospital bed. We told the nurse that we couldn't really go in there, because a patient was lying there, obviously waiting for treatment. She laughed and said: "Oh no, that is the doctor. Just wake him up, I think he had too much Kava last night." Ah, wonderful! And this guy is supposed to stick a needle in my arm?! What else to do though, we woke him up and told him we needed our blood tested. He wiped his eyes and for the next five minutes walked around in circles in the tiny room, randomly picking up papers, opening cupboards and trying to shake off his Kava hangover. I said to Brian, I am really not so sure about all this and he said: "No worries, I'll go first. He can practice on me and then he's gonna be alright with you." Oh, what a gentleman! When finally he was ready for it all, he asked Brian to sit down, got his rubberband and needle (sealed, thank God!) out and a little cotton ball that he dunked into a big plastic container of disinfectant with his bare hands, then squeezed it out back into the same container. Dear mother of God, any western health inspector would have gotten a heart attack and I believe they put the "How to wash your hands properly" posters up solely so the walls aren't that bare-looking cause no one I met that day washed their hands before examining us. And Brian's question if it wasn't better to put on gloves before sticking a needle into his arm was just answered with: "It's okay." Ah well then...
After having been drained (I gotta give him that he hit the veins at the first try, but I swear I never pumped my fist so eagerly) we got to pee in a cup in the hospital public toilet where there's no light and no TP (yes, patients have to bring their own paper) and then got measured and weighed. The measuring was my favourite part. Just imagine how you want to record your kids' growing process by making marks beside the door frame every month or so. Now that's exactly what they did at the hospital. In absence of a tape measure or anything else longer than 20cms they put us against the wall, made a mark and then measured from bottom to top, bit by bit, with an ordinary school ruler. It turned out to be pretty accurate. Give or take 5 cms. Who cares?
Blood pressure was next. Unfortunately the thing that pumps up and goes around your arm had a little hole, so every time the good nurse was ready to take the reading, it got flat again and she had to use a very refined technique of covering the hole with two fingers while pressing the stethoscope on my arm with the other three fingers. Not having arthritis definitely payed off here.
In the meantime, the results from our blood tests were in and it turned out we didn't have syphillis. Wow, what a relief! Honestly, I don't even think they have the facilities here to test for all that stuff. I mean, they don't even have a tape measure... Probably, to do us a favour and fulfill the paperwork requirements, the doctor just took a nap for 15 minutes and then said everything was okay. Maybe I am doing them outcrying injustice, who knows?
Well anyway, we have mastered another Tongan adventure. Hopefully the last one for this year...
