Journey to Malaysia, and a Hospital Visit

  Mersing, Malaysia
Sunday, February 18, 2007

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Our journey out of Singapore was comfortable, pretty and uneventful. With no idea what we were doing we successfully transfered from one bus to another all the way out of Singapore, through customs and found the correct us to the port town on the east coast. The landscape throughout the bus ride through Malaysia was the deepest, densest jungle I have ever seen. Very cool. We missed the last ferry out to our island and had to spend the night in that town, called Mersing. There was only a couple guest houses, a dock, and basically nothing else. We were asleep by 11pm for a 7am wakeup call. We purchased the Ferry out for 8:30am in the morning, but when we arrived at 8am, The fairy had already left. The next one was at 10am. Justin and I sat down to read. I was in the part of my book about infectious diseases, bacteria, and doctors. I took a look at my not-so-slowly spreading rash that I had picked up in Kuala Lumpur and panicked. It wasn't long before the man-eating bacteria had consumed my entire epidermis and would leave me a withered bag of bones. I needed to go to the hospital, NOW. We had 1 hour to find a hospital and make it back to the ferry or we would have to spend another day in Mersing- which in all likelihood was going to happen.

We stored our bags at the ferry's office and hit the road on foot. We asked the first lady we saw drive by in a car where the hospital was and she quickly responded "get in! I'll take you there." We inadvertently stumbled in to our first Asian hitchhiking adventure! The lady was very nice but barely spoke English. It only took about 5 minutes to get the hospital, where she deposited us at the doorstep with a friendly goodbye.

At the hospital, nothing was written in English and it suddenly struck me that I was in a very strange country, had no insurance information and little idea what kind of crazy witch doctor I was about to see. My fears were quickly eliminated, however, so much so that by the end of my visit I was actually wishing our health care system was more like Malaysia's!

The hospital was small, one floor and not OLD looking, but certainly not state of the art. The complex of rooms were all open air- typical Asian style- and it was refreshing to be in a waiting room with fresh air. There was a front desk, a waiting room with about 50 chairs (with maybe half empty), maybe 5 doctors rooms, and an emergency room around the corner.

At the front desk I was asked to fill out my paper work (my name, passport number, and nationality only). The friendly man at the counter helped me read and fill out the information card and gave me a number that would be called when I was to see the triage nurse. He charged me 15 Ringet (less than $5 USD) to get my number, and I could only expect that more fees would be tacked on at every stop- I had a large wad of cash at the ready.
Within half an hour, my number was called and I went in to see the nurse. A young Muslim woman attended to me very well. She took my blood pressure (on an electronic machine, its worth pointing out), examined my rash (it started on my elbow and spread to my arms, back and legs), asked about my medical history, and took some notes for the doctor. She said the doctor would see me soon. In Asia, "soon" usually means anywhere from 1 to 12 hours, so I settled back in to the waiting room with a couple dozen other locals. No sooner had I opened my book than the doctor came out calling my name. I was lead in to the office a very young and pretty doctor. She couldn't have been much older than me! She spoke English well, asked a lot of questions, and seemed to be very knowledgable. She quickly diagnosed that I had just had some sort of allergic reaction (perhaps to seafood!) that had given me hives. She took her time and explained what medication she had prescribed, and handed me a form in Malaysian for the pharmacy. I was out the door in 10 minutes.

I walked back to the front desk with my wallet out, wondering how much that short doctors visit was going to cost me and where the nearest pharmacy was. The man smiled at me and pointed to another window about 30 feet away labeled "Farmacy." I walked to that window, handed the lady my slip and within 3 minutes she had found my 3 different types of pills, poured them in to little baggies and explained to me my dosages. They gave me a steroid for inflammation, an antihistimine for the itching, and an antibiotic. They don't carry different sizes of different pills, so the doses are funny. I have to take eight 5mg pills of one type, 2 times a day. After one week, the first baggy runs out, and I have to take 4 of the 5mg pills twice a day for some time after that (I'll write that out for you in full at the bottom again). See said "thank you, feel better" and handed me the baggies. I responded "how much?" She looked at me puzzled. "How much for the pills?" She laughed and smiled at me. "You already paid... 15 Ringet for everything." Justin and I kind of looked at each other like there must be some trick here. I slowly walked away waiting for a guard to chase me down and cuff me.
We made it all the way to the road before it fully set in. My whole visit to the hospital cost me just about $4.50, and took only 40 minutes. I had seen a doctor, been prescribed medicine, and had my prescription filled without delay AT the hospital- for no extra cost. The place was clean, friendly, and orderly and the doctor was knowledgeable and professional. What an amazing experience I just had! It makes one wonder why the American system has so many problems, takes so long, and costs so much.

Back on the road, we stuck our thumbs back out and soon found another ride back to the docks. We had actually made it back to our ferry in time! We boarded the boat and set off towards the open ocean. As we motored through the beautiful archipelago, I reflected on the fact that the ferry trip actually cost me twice the amount as my hospital visit.

Next stop, Pulau Tioman! (a clever reader will have already figured out that we made it to the island or you wouldn't be reading this.)