Infected Bigfoots in the Land of Tiny Shoes, pt 1

Two stories today, intertwined.

I mentioned in my Pipe Blog that Emily had managed to impale her palm on a workshop carving tool the other day. Ouch. This provoked some mild fretting on her part, because she couldn't recall her last tetanus shot. This worried her considerably, enough to brave a doctor visit for a new shot. Unfortunately, this launched us off into another strange encounter with French health care...

She called the doctor's office, explained her problem, and the secretary made an appointment for her. So far, so good. However, on arrival, she found herself talking to the replacement doctor (They shuffle offices to maintain service at odd hours and weekends), who gave her the classic default answer here - "Non, ce n'est pas possible ici', or, "No, we don't give tetanus shots here... What do you think this is, a doctor's office?" Now, the secretary could have told her that over the phone instead of making her an appointment for the doctor to tell her that, but it gets sillier. In the states, you'd call your local doctor, run by, get jabbed, pay $65 for the visit, and be on your way. Here, he explained that we would have to go to the hospital in St. Nazaire for the jab.

OK...

The thought of trying to navigate our way through a French hospital, asking people at forty different windows where we were supposed to go, was enough to have made me shrug and take my chances with dropping dead, had it been me (After all, if the infection killed me, I'd still be saved an encounter with French bureaucracy and Em would be showered with insurance money, so I'd call that a better outcome). Emily, however, is a cautious soul by nature, and opted to tackle this strange new experience. Besides, we had to go to St. Nazaire anyway to find me some new shoes (more on this later).

I must take a moment here to mention the sheer creepiness of the two French hospitals I've seen thus far. I hope they're not all like this - Maybe all the others are pristine and gleaming, but both the one in Nantes and the one in St. Nazaire seem stuck in a time warp - Huge rambling monoliths of state-approved 1970's architecture that surely looked quite snazzy in 1973 but unfortunately haven't been painted since. The overall impression I had of both was crumbling grime held together with bailing wire and tape (Right down to the swinging doors that one passes through on the way to the emergency room, which seem to have door pulls retrofitted from random planks of wood someone had in their back yard). They aren't shiny, they aren't white, and they certainly aren't confidence-inspiring as places to be treated. However, this gothic feel seems quite at odds with the high tech interiors, which are stocked with fancy new equipment and - to our shock - really bright and helpful and friendly staff. Well, mostly... I remind myself of France's better health care conditions, hospital care, and lower infant mortality rates to the US and wonder if the American hospitals aren't perhaps spending cash on looking shiny that might better be spent on new equipment instead. But, I digress..

We go in with NO idea where to go or what we're after. There is a bewildering maze of windows with bored people sitting in them, and we're told to take a number from a ticket machine and wait to be called on to explain our problem.... This despite the fact that there is a sleepy fellow just sitting and yawning in a free window three feet from us. We puzzle over the instructions on the ticket machine for a few minutes, long enough to inspire one of those very objectionable French types to come by and fire off a rapid flurry of high-speed français explaining just which button to push for a ticket, as we're obviously dolts. Fortunately, around this time Emily realizes that we don't want this ticket thing at all, and off we go to an actual service desk where a smiling and helpful lady points us to the emergency ward for the shot.

(Cue more walking through the hospital admiring the grim peeling pea-green hall paint and scuffed .. well, scuffed everything)

"Urgences" is another help window with a young woman who directs us to a very helpful and smiling young woman who tells us that we don't come to the hospital for shots, that isn't how it's done.

!!!

Yes, normally a tetanus shot is handled exactly as it would be in the US - it's given by your local doctor. Easy peasey. Emily explains that the doctor claimed to have no stock of the tetanus vaccine (He said no small doctor's offices carried this in their stock). Hospital lady laughs at this and says the normal procedure is to get a prescription from the doc, then go to the drugstore to pick up the medicine, than cart it back to the doc so he can give it to you in a shot. She's really quite boggled by the fact that our doctor didn't do this, and the story quickly circulates all around the Urgences area about what a maroon this temp doctor is... I don't know the French word for "hick", but there is much eye-rolling and their impression of our stand-in visiting doctor is pretty obvious. To my eyes, it's just another example of the French administration at its most classic - We didn't already know the process to ask about in order to get the shot, so the information wasn't provided because we didn't know the question we needed to ask. Information Retention is the one facet of French character which I still find insanity-inducing, and these experiences never fail to make me want to throttle the next state employee I see.

The people at Urgences more than make up for this, though, by being quite friendly and helpful and extraordinarily quick - Emily was in and out before I covered ten pages in my book in the waiting room, and all to the tune of 9 euros. Victory!! And then, we were off to try and find a new pair of shoes for me.......a size 47+, here in the Land of Gelfling Feet. More to come in part deux.