July 3rd, 2018
July 4th, 2018
It is 1:56pm on Wednesday July 4th and we are still in Hong Kong. The last 24 hours have been quite the whirlwind. I’ll try to make a long story short as I’m sure you don’t need all the gory details and long winded details of my frustrations! Rachael fainted on the plane on the Vancouver-Hong Kong leg of our journey, with about 1 1/2 hours left in the flight. This was a 13 plus hour flight…..yes, really long. She hit her head quite hard on the tray table and despite her protests, the airline insisted she be seen by a doctor in the hospital before she could get on another plane. So they took her and I off and after a ride to the airport in an ambulance she was assessed at the local hospital. She had many tests and they determined they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. BUT, they wouldn’t write the certificate to clear her for flight without observing her overnight. Anyway, she wasn’t having any of that and she signed herself out of hospital and we went to the hotel that the airline had arranged for us. The understanding was that we would go back in the morning, they would see she was fine and then write us the certificate, with many explanations of “no guarantee”.
As always we wake up very early on the first few nights here, so we were back up and ready to go back to hospital by 6:45 am. Rachael and I took taxi-cab back over to North Lantau Hospital and told our sad tale to the ‘on duty’ staff. No small feat given the language barriers we are facing here. They took us in and a doctor who was equally as obstinant as the doctor last night went on at length about being “observed”, with some reference to 24 hours! They made us go back and get readmitted to the ER ward so they could “assess” her. So we pay again and sit and wait. When she was called in, the lady doctor takes about 3 minutes to have a conversation with Rachael, looked at all the test results and says “You are fine. I’ll write the certificate. Just give me a few minutes” 🎉🎉 SO ladies and gentlemen. That’s how we get it done! Women making it happen.
Shout out to Hong Kong airlines for being sweet & attentive on the plane. The ground crew, not nearly as easy to deal with today. The earliest flight they would put us on today was the same 8pm flight as last night, so we are those random homeless people killing 11 hours in the airport.
I did manage to get a concession out of them in that they gave us meal vouchers, so we all had double whoppers and fries for lunch. I guess they also paid for two hotel rooms last night and sent a staff member to hospital and paid for Troy and Anna’s taxi cab. And acted as bank machine when I needed to trade USD for Hong Kong dollars for my and Rachael’s taxi cab last night and this morning?? 😉 We just really would have liked to be allowed into their lounge today….
Plus the American healthcare system has some work to do bcz for $1,230 HKD (~$156 USD) Rachael had a cat scan, EKG, blood work, other tests etc done. I thought there was a mistake last night on the bill and they would surely charge me the rest today when I showed up for the clearance to fly certificate. But nope, I paid the same flat rate to readmit her. So yes, they got a little over $300 out of me. But $300 at an ER in America doesn’t even get you a chat at the information counter!!
Sometimes the little things make me smile. Dessert on the plane…..
