My first day of medical testing at the BLK Max Super Specialty hospital (gotta love the name) was an interesting experience. The hospital sent a driver to pick me up and drive me to the hospital, which was helpful. I’d eventually learn that not only is it a 5 minute walk, but, depending on traffic, sometimes the fastest way to the hotel from other parts of the city included cutting through the hospital parking lot. I got to the hospital and met my handler, a nice Indian man named Sukhen. I didn’t actually get his name at the time; he texted it to me late that afternoon when we were exchanging numbers, so I had no name for him all day. I just thought of him as my “handler”. The first order of business was to pay for the tests. Everything had to be paid for and the invoices and receipts shown to the techs before they would do any tests, which makes sense. Sukhen handled the communication with the admin for me; I’d later learn that his official job title wasn’t handler but rather translator. In a country where English is one of the 2 official languages, I ran into a surprising amount of trouble communicating in English, so having a translator on hand was helpful. After a good 30 minutes of standing in line, trying to explain things to the admin, and getting paperwork together, we were off.
Our first stop was to get some blood drawn. I’d been warned that I needed to be fasted, so I was glad to get this knocked out so I could hopefully eat soon. I was taken to the phlebotomy lab where there were 3 patient chairs, one of which was occupied by a man who was playing on his phone. I was shown to one of the remaining chairs and the man looked up from his phone at me, grabbed his bag, and left the room. I’m assuming that he was either done with his tests and was wrapping up an email or that he was a staff member who was hiding from work. The tech came into the room with 9 empty vials and set them down next to me and started drawing blood. I was hoping that he wasn’t going to try to fill all 9, but I couldn’t think of any reason why he’d have them if he wasn’t going to use them. He did end up filling all 9, withdrew the needle, gave me a bandaid, and sent me on my way. The next stop was the Executive Health Center, which was a small run-down building behind the main hospital facility. I was taken in and asked to take a seat at a table. My handler spoke to the receptionist, told me he’d be right back, and left. Another staff member came over, asked me my name, asked me if I had diabetes, and set down a paper cup with a spoon in it and a bottle of water. She poured some water into the cup and started stirring. She handed the cup to me and said, “drink.” I took a sip and discovered it was sugar water. Just a crapton of sugar dissolved in water. I have a bit of a sweet tooth; I enjoy desserts just as much as, if not more than, most people. But this was almost unpalatable. After I finished, she looked in the cup, saw the sugar that hadn’t dissolved, added water, stirred, and thrust the cup back into my hands. I eventually finished to her satisfaction, and she took the cup, spoon, and bottle, and left. So I sat there and waited. And waited. Eventually Sukhen came back and said that we had to go for more tests.
We went all over the hospital, from floor to floor, wing to wing, and room to room. An EKG here, a urine test there, an eye exam here, and an ultrasound there. He’d tell me what was next and off we’d go. About 2 hours after my cup-o-sugar, he looked at his watch and told me that we had to get blood drawn again. Uh, ok. So we went back to the phlebotomy lab and I got another 5 vials of blood drawn. It wasn’t until I got the results back that I figured out what the story was. Some of the first vials were for the fasted numbers. Then they fed me a specific amount of sugar to spike my blood sugar and my body would treat it as a “meal.” After 2 hours, they check your blood sugar levels again to see how your body processes sugar, so my test results had a fasting blood sugar number and a post-prandial blood sugar number (both in the normal range, thank you very much). But as with so many other things, I had to figure this out on my own. Sukhen, while professional, wasn’t much for chit chat and his English was good but not great. The one thing he did really well, which was key, was to get me to the front of the line at most of the tests we went to. Apparently being an “international patient” carries some weight and gets you special treatment. I will admit that I felt bad when we were seen before a patient who had bandages on his head, but they weren’t bloody, so I made myself feel better by telling myself that he didn’t have a head wound, he was just covering up a bad tattoo. (You make up whatever story you need to, I guess). It was at that point that it really dawned on me that this was an actual hospital, not just a testing facility. Later, I saw a man in one of the waiting areas with a long white wire coming out of his ear. I started to think about whether it was really OK that I was going before people who needed these services, when he turned his head and I realized that it was a wired earbud. He may have needed the service more than I did, but at least he had some music to keep himself entertained.
Hours passed and tests continued. I was weighed several times, always fully dressed and sometimes with my bag and sometimes without. Every time my weight varied by a bit. My height was checked several times, and each time it was with a Home Depot tape measure that was glued to the wall. I felt like I was being checked to see if I was tall enough to ride on the roller coaster. The tape measures contrasted nicely, however, with the dozens of signs on the wall touting cutting edge technology they had and the advanced robotics procedures that they could do at the hospital.
My handler and I went the dermatologist’s office. He opened the door, said a few things, and told me to come in. The doctor was seated at her desk with 2 chairs across from her, one of which was occupied. Sukhen pointed to the open chair and told me to sit. The doctor asked a few questions and I answered. As we talked she wrote a few relevant things down on a sheet of paper. At the end of the appointment, she spun it around to face the other guy, who then took out his phone and took a photo of her notes. She then put the sheet in my folder, handed it to me, and sent me on my way. This would become an interesting pattern over the next several days. Despite how high tech the facility claims to be, a lot of work is done via WhatsApp. Without HIPAA, they can get away with things like that. My ultrasound tech took several photos of the images that were on the screen, which I thought was odd; they’re already digital photos, so why take photos of photos? I guess my innards were impressive enough that he wanted photos for posterity. I should have offered to sign them for him. It turns out the most advanced piece of medical tech at BLK Max was WhatsApp.
That wasn’t the only instance of odd behavior that I saw. One of the phlebotomy techs came into the room, put on gloves, drew blood from another patient, put the blood in the collection tray, then used hand sanitizer. While still wearing the gloves. Fortunately, I had a different tech who put on fresh gloves before starting on my draw, but I can’t imagine what the logic was for him to sanitize his gloves.
My dental checkup was so fast and useless that I could have done better with my smartphone. She sat me down in the chair, which was already reclined. She stuck a mirror in my mouth, looked around for about 15 seconds, and told me that we were done. She said that there were no cavities or plaque, I just needed to stay on top of my regular cleanings. I could have been missing a tooth and I don’t think she would have noticed. But other tests were far more thorough; the orthopedist spent several minutes with me discussing my shoulder issues and showing me what he was seeing on the MRI films. My chest x-ray was done in under a minute; I walked up to the machine, put my chin on the chin rest, grabbed the handles on either side, waited for the techs to leave the room, heard a loud beep, and I was told that I could go. That was easy. With technology, a lot of these tests are faster than they used to be. It’s not the test that’s the bottleneck; it’s getting the results read by a trained eye that takes time.
Soon enough, 5:00PM rolled around. We finished the appointment that we were at and walked back to the lounge area. Sukhen looked through the list of tests that still needed to be done and told me that he’d send a car for me in the morning. I thanked him for his help and took a car back to the hotel. It was a good thing that we stopped when we did; we never took a break for lunch and I was starting to get crabby. Although now that I think about it, Sukhen did disappear on me a few times. I wonder if he snuck in a meal while I was waiting for appointments? Between the 14 vials of blood that I’d lost, the lack of breakfast and lunch, and the cup of sugar I had as a snack, I was surprised that I was still coherent. But off to the hotel I went to drop off my stuff and find some food, which happened to be the restaurant right there in the hotel. All things considered, I didn’t trust myself to walk outside of the building.
