Emergency room visit

As promised, continued on from the last post….

I’ve never been to A & E before. It certainly was an experience. We saw a guy who cut his hand open, a girl in a fluorescent green dressing gown with a HOOD (how awesome is that?) who’d messed up her back, some guy who swallowed his dentures (a young guy, not an old man either) and a pimp and two prostitutes.

We were there for, oh I don’t know, two or three hours? The whole night is blurry to me. I don’t know what time we got there, but I’d say sometimes after midnight and got home around 4. I had about 4 hours sleep and then went off to cover the opening of the new local motorway link to try wrangle a story out of it.

I also got approximately four hours sleep last night, having been to a 21st, and am operating on empty.

Anyway. The last time that those hoodlums came back around, BF went round the back to get the LL (who was very territorial and keen to go give them the beatdown, actually). Did I mention how rainy, dark and miserable it was? It was so cold, SO damp and BF skidded across the wet grass and up onto the concrete steps, slicing his foot up. After a little cleaning up and bandaging it, we reached the conclusion that we needed to go to A & E and get stitches.

Yes, sadly, my first thought was to worry about what it would cost. But health is numero uno, and I figured if it cost more than what we had, well we would just have to work something out. BF thought we should wait until morning when it would cost less, but a) we would have no way to get there and b) the lines would probably be heinous during the day. So our awesome friends rallied round and drove us first to St Lukes White Cross – which was closed – then on to the hospital.

We waited. And waited. I read crap magazines – an HR magazine, believe it or not, a techy magazine and a Home and Garden. We watched Fox News on Prime. And infomercials for Barefoot Science, the ridiculous ab workout thing that uses gravity to spin you round this circular thing, and the Versa Cutter. It was truly mind numbing.

BF was seen by a consultant right away, but it was another few hours before a doctor actually called him up. He got some painkillers and a local anesthetic (which they had to get an orthopedist in to administer), and crutches. Crutches which cost $45, but we get back $35 upon returning them.

So it was a VERRRRRRY long night. However, whether it’s because we were at the hospital rather than a suburban A&E, or what, it didn’t cost us anything out of pocket – bar the crutches. As soon as I walked in I saw the sign informing us that visits were free for NZ citizens and residents.

That was, indeed, the best part of the night. Well, behind the surprise visit from our friends and all their help.