Islamabad – Hospitals and Commissions

I had to head back to Islamabad to pick up my passport from the Indian High Commission. But I don't really remember the bus journey back as I felt so lethargic...

I managed to make it back to the same hotel I'd stayed at before, and after a rather worrying additional symptom (I'll spare the details) realized that after a week of really bad pain and constant diarrhoea – whatever was causing me to be so ill wasn't going to go away on it's own. I'd also been feeling so nauseous the whole time that I'd hardly eaten anything in the last two days which wasn't helping.

When I woke the next day I felt even worse, so decided to head off to find a hospital.

I paid 5 rupees to see the doctor at one of the clinics – but it was what you'd imaging a third world hospital to be like. The place was packed with people, and the doctor was having three or four conversations all at the same time.

She told me to go to room five for some injections, but when I asked if they would also give me some antibiotics she just repeated the instructions.

Room 5 turned out to be something out of a horror movie.

There were people taking up every available space, and used medical equipment - including bandages with blood on and used needles - were lying around the place.

Despite feeling really ill, I decided that I needed a second opinion - the thought of injections in room 5 wasn't doing it for me.

So I headed to one of the other hospitals – and after paying 10 rupees I was shown in to see the doctor who sat and listened to my symptoms and then asked a load of questions.

His diagnosis was that I was really very sick and needed immediate medical treatment – including intravenous antibiotics. I wasn't sure whether to call the Travel Insurance company, but by this point I'd got past caring, so decided just to go along with whatever they suggested and sort out any problems later.

I was shown to a room with a bed and told to lie down while the nurse stuck a needle into a vein in my arm - and then for the rest of the afternoon I had two courses of intravenous antibiotics and a bag of re-hydration fluid.

During the afternoon the doctor came to check on me, and I was prescribed two courses of antibiotics. A few hours later the chief consultant appeared and reviewed everything and said I was going to be OK...

It took a few days before I started to feel well again – but the antibiotics worked more or less straight away and the pain had gone by the evening.

I think that I picked up Amebic Dysentery from some Chicken Kebabs in one of the best restaurants in the city. The second case of food poisoning in two weeks – all caused by contaminated meat – I can't wait to get to India and switch back to a vege diet :-)

The next day I negotiated my way into the “Embassy Enclave” (and yes – they made me promise to “call in” at the British Embassy. I can just imagine how that would go: "How are you old chap? Gin and Tonic? :-). After queing for a fair amount of time, I was finally allowed to approach window five, and collect my passport. They've given me a six month double entry visa...

So much for us living in “difficult times”...