Disgusting treatment!

This morning i woke up around 4.30am with a fair bit of pain in my knee and hip.
I lay here bearing it for about an hour or more, and finally managed to fall asleep again.

I woke up again around 8am, with one of the nurses coming into my room to use the toilet area to fill her buckets for her cleaning duties. She comes in here every morning around the same time. She never actually cleans my room though, so i'm guessing this is a convenient room on her tour of cleaning to use for filling her buckets, etc?

No food this morning. No-one came in to wash me either, even though i asked to please see a nurse so i could request one. No nurse bothered to stop in.

It's like i am a forgotten person here in room 8. They don't care to help me anymore. There are some nurses here that i have made friends with, that will go behind the administrations back to help me, but the majority of them steer clear of me now.

The spanish nurse has said that she will bring me some food from home for this evening, so that will be a nice treat.

I had a yoghurt that the girls bought me yesterday, and was wondering what else i could find to eat, as my food stock was somewhat diminished now.

I decided to get online and carry on with the website building.

About 9.30am the girls and another of my friends arrived to say hello. I told them that no-one had bothered to even come into my room this morning yet, and as such had not brushed my teeth, or washed up yet.

They went into the bathroom and got the soap, basin and cloth and gave me a wash. They put a bit of cream on my bed sores on my backside, which luckily are starting to heal now. I brushed my teeth, and then they were off to get me some breakfast.

About an hour later they returned with my first burger since being admitted here, Burger King! Not my first choice of burger bar, but happily accepted anyway!

They also brought me some milk for calcium for my bones, and another orange juice.

While they were out shopping there was a knock on the door. It was a policeman! I started to feel the panic rising inside me, wondering what was about to happen?

He said that he was from the embassy and was a tourist policeman, and just wanted to know my name and surname, age, and where i was working and staying. I asked him if there were any problems and he said no, no worries. He was very polite. Then he left.

Not quite sure what that was all about, but no doubt i will find out at some point?

Decided to have a sleep cos i was tired from not sleeping through last night.

Managed an hour and then was woken up with the same pain in my knee again. Was lying here wondering how long it would take to go away this time, and there was a knock on the door.

A nurse came in to take my blood pressure. I told her about the pain and she said she would get another nurse to bring me an injection for the pain. That was a half hour ago!

She asked me how long i had been here and i told her 4 days short of a month. She couldn't believe it! I also told her about my fibula and that the doctor said that it'll heal on its own. She seemed sceptical. She asked me when last i saw my doctor. I told her over 2 weeks ago. She couldn't believe this! She also said that the hospital had told her that i am going home today! I told her i don't know anything about this?! And that it wouldn't make any sense even if i was because tomorrow i am supposed to get the bandages off my upper leg and the staples taken out.

She seemed amazed that my doctor had't been in touch. She said she would go and find out what was going on. Like i said, that was half an hour ago...

Lets see what the rest of this interesting sunday holds in store...

Well, my lawyer came to see me this evening. Just to fill me in with tomorrows proceedings.
They will be going to the courts in Higuey (about 30min away) to submit documents to be served to the driver and his wife saying that they need to sit down with my lawyer and come to an agreement regarding the hospital bill immediately or risk the husband being thrown in jail again.

Hopefully this action will keep the hospital at bay for a little while longer.

The catch is they need $400 to pay for stamps, the messenger, etc. So, it was back on the phone to my poor brother to ask for his help. He sent the money through, and the girls will pick it up in the morning for me and bring it here. I have told him i require a receipt for it, and will be keeping all my receipts that i am accumulating til this case is resolved and i can get my money back!

So, we'll wait and see what the morning has in store for us! I'm guessing it'll involve a frantic hospital insurance lawyer waving documents at me and telling me i have to sign them!

What a way to start the week!

The spanish nurse came round this eveing and brought me some cous cous and a bagel. Very nice of her. It was her day off today as well. She was disgusted when i told her about how i've been treated today, and stole me some clean sheets while no-one was looking, and helped me fit them.

I needed to go to the toilet this evening, and phoned the nurses at reception to ask them to please come and empty the toilet pan for me. Its been almost an hour now, and i'm still sitting in the smell! I hope i can find a way to advertise this in this country so that people will see how terribly this hospital operates! It really is disgusting!
I dont foresee anyone coming to help me either. The spanish nurse was telling me that she has heard the boss's telling all the nursing staff to ignore me if i want anything! Honestly, how do you run an operation like this and get away with it?!

According to my lawyer, when the ambulance arrived here, they should have only done the minimum required to patch me up so that i could get taken to the public hospital in the capital, Santo Domingo. It was the clinics greed of seeing a foreigner lying on their table and thinking they could fleece me for all they could, that kept me here!

And once they found out that i didn't have any money or travel insurance, they drew up the papers to make me personally responsible so that they could be guaranteed their cash!

Good luck to this stupid woman in the morning. I wont be signing anything, and in fact, am in talks with my lawyer to sue this place for malpractice for not fixing my leg properly, and also for human rights abuses while i have been kept here against my will!

Hopefully i can get a successful lawsuit against them! They don't deserve to be in business!