rtw365

Surgery in India

On January 4th, I got on an overnight bus from Goa to Pune from where I was going to catch another two busses to get me to a 10-day vipassana meditation retreat in Igatpuri. I made it to Pune early morning on the 5th, got on the next bus, and then had it take me to the hospital. I was having severe pain in my low back and side, severe enough to be accompanied by dry heaves (I hadn't eaten all night, so I couldn't actually vomit). I had the bus get me to a hospital in Pune where I found that the problem was two kidney stones, one which was 9mm and required surgery to break it up.

So I got to enjoy the adventure of four days in an Indian hospital. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been since Pune is a major city with one of India's most prestigious universities. I got a great surgeon who's performed this exact surgery over a thousand times, and the hospital, while not what I would consider up to US standards, was much better than I might have expected. Nice people. They all were amazed that I was alone though and kept asking where my friends and family were. If an Indian goes to the hospital, it seems like not just their friends and family but their entire village accompanies them! OK, perhaps that's a minor exageration, but there looked like a heck of a lot more visitors than patients.

I got to stay awake for the surgery and he showed me on the monitor what he was doing, though there came a point where I was uncomfortable enough that they sedated me and I missed out on some of it -- I'll have to wait until I get back to the US and watch the video tape he gave me.

The first procedure, including four days in the hospital and everything else, came out to about 35,000 Rupees or $750. I think that's about the room charge for one night in a hospital back in San Francisco!

I go back to the hospital again on the 22nd to have a stent removed, and will probably stay in the hospital for two days at that time.

posted by Dale L. Larson @ 9:07 PM