The hell that is Clinica Canela

Woke up to the smell of the toilet still in the room this morning!

No-one bothered to come and empty it last night despite me asking and them saying they would!

A nurse came in around 7.30am and i told her it had been there since last night. She turned her nose up and left. 10min later another nurse came in and walked up to it and looked at it for a while, then said something to me in spanish i didn't understand and then left.

Finally, at 8.20am a nurse came in and emptied the bed pan into the toilet! A great start to the morning! And one of the girls who was gonna bring me the money for the lawyer from WU is gonna be delayed, so i dont know if i can get this money to the lawyer in time now!

Happy mondays!

Well, its now 2pm, and what a stressful morning it has been once again!

First to arrive were the 2 girls around about 11am, bringing me the money my brother had sent and also some food. While I was chatting to them, the lawyers wife arrived to get the money from me.
The girls sprang to my defense, and went about questioning her and wanting to know who she was before i handed over any money.
After a rather confusing half hour or so, i sent a text to Julien, my lawyer, and asked him to phone me on the landline in my room.

His partners wife went for a walk, saying she'd be back in half an hour.

The next knock at the door was a policeman. He asked me if i was ok, and said hello to the girls. I asked him where he was from, and he said that someone had phoned the police to report to them that i was refusing to pay my hospital bill and that they need to look into things!

No doubt the hospitals lawyer who had been waving paperwork under my nose the last few times she'd been here!

He wanted to know the lawyers name from the UK embassy so that he could hear all of the facts of my case. I gave him the number, and just then the phone rang and it was Julien. I passed the phone to the policeman and they spoke to each other for a while, then Julien spoke to the girls and told them who the woman was, and that it was ok to give her the money. I spoke to him lastly, and he said that there was another problem now!

Miguel, my first lawyer who i had fired, was refusing to step down as my lawyer until he was fully paid up for his services to me. He was demanding 150 000 peso, roughly $4000!! For 2 weeks work in which he did absolutely nothing for me! He couldn't even put my name on the police report in that time, which Julien managed to do within 24h of meeting me!

He told me not to worry about it though, and that he would take care of them, and that things were still going ahead at the courthouse today.

Wow, unbelievable! From one bit of bad news to the next!

The policeman spoke to me before he left and told me that the 2 girls were very good for me, and that i needed to keep them close. They were definitely looking after my best interests. He also said that there are a lot of corrupt and dodgy people in the DR, and that i should be very careful, and that he was disgusted how i had been treated. He apologised for his country and how i had been let down so far, and promised to speak to his superiors at the police station and get me released from the hospital in the next day or so.

The girls and i chatted for a bit and then they left to go and buy me some more medication from the pharmacy because the hospital was about twice as expensive!

So, that's where we stand at the moment. Just finished a lovely lunch that the girls brought me, and feeling a little better about things. Looking forward to finally getting out of here.

The doctor was supposed to take tha bandages off today and the 70 odd staples too, but never pitched up. The girls went to speak to the administration earlier and returned to tell me that the doctor refuses to treat me, and so does the hospital! So, it is now imperative i get out of here. After the nurses shock that i haven't been seen in over 2 weeks, i am a little worried about what is going on under the bandages, and i also still have my fibula to worry about. That will need a 2nd opinion soon too!

But it seems i am a step closer to being released from this hell that is Clinica Canela! Fingers crossed!