Double~take | emergency

Hurt in a strange land

E

mergency room consultation fee (without OHIP - the no-cost coverage offered by the Ontario government to Canadians): $600
X-rays: $77
Post x-ray consultation including any required treatment: $375
Finding out your thumb wasn’t broken to begin with? Priceless…

I seem to have an unfortunate tendency towards finger injuries while playing ball games. So far my boycott list includes basketball and rugby; and a couple of weeks ago I added dodgeball to the list. Initially it just seemed to be strained muscle around my thumb, so I iced it and avoided using it for a while; but when an ominous hard lump replaced the knuckle in question, I figured I needed a check up.

So, I had two options. Go straight to the emergency department of the local hospital to wait a couple of hours, get it looked at, then wait longer for the x-rays and treatment; or go to the nearby walk-in clinic to get a referral to the local hospital’s x-ray department, where I would still have to pay all the hospital fees (because the walk-in clinic doesn’t treat fractures) plus an extra referral fee. Total? About $1,000. Why? Because I am not a Canadian resident, and I don’t have OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan). I might eventually be able to get it refunded by my travel insurance company, but I’m not holding my breath…

It was looking very bleak. My Canadian translator had tried all the back roads and used all her aces. Enter the heroes of the story - the doctors and reception staff at the walk-in clinic. Having winced at the numbers they’d quoted us, and feeling sympathetic towards my seemingly minor injury, they started digging, skipping queues, dodging red tape and ignoring technicalities. Just as I was thinking it could be cheaper to fly back to Australia and dig out my Medicare card (and maybe less of a wait) a light shone in the darkness, and I got my referral and x-rays in record time.

Only then to discover they couldn’t find a fracture. The doctor didn’t know why there was a lump on my knuckle - it could be just a mass of fibrous scar tissue in the tendons. Tongue depressors and gauze make a splint to keep me from moving it during my day’s activities; and the final cost was the minimum they could charge - all up, one tenth of the initial quote.

It could have been nasty - and all over a thumb that wasn’t broken anyway. I don’t want to know how bad it could get over the bigger stuff - serious injury; or visas. There’s the downside to being an outsider in a foreign land; and the awesome results that can be achieved by locals wielding the home-field advantage.

Double~take appears every Saturday on theRubicon. Find past Double~take posts and a bio of Stephanie Hung here.

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