Polish Emergency Room Visit

I've had a few people ask: "What about the ER visit?" - It was another life experience. On Monday, May 10 - 24 hours after arriving in Krakow, Poland and touring the whole day and having a lovely dinner, Ross noticed leg swelling and red streaks going up his legs - in 2007 this happened after a shin scrape and he received IV antibiotics at Methodist Hosp - they called it cellulitis.....so we diagnosed it - but what do you do at 9pm at night. Went to the hotel desk clerk told him we needed a hospital - he did speak some English - probably just wanted us to get the heck out of his hotel in case we died. He called and spoke lots of Polish then wrote down Kopernica 21 as the address and called a cab - He came, dropped us off in a dark area with hardly any street lights where the door is LOCKED - a woman comes and gestures to us to go out the walk and around the corner - picture below is what we saw - remember to click on photos to enlarge. Noone spoke much English - there were lots of people in chairs, wheelchairs and stretchers moaning and bleeding so we thought "This will be a long night" - He filled out four lines on a form and soon someone came down the hall and called us - 2nd picture - must be the "American waiting room" - doctor spoke English and when I went in with Ross he says "You go out" - I did. They did an EKG (fine), full bloodwork (fine) and Ross finally convinced the 2nd doctor that he needed IV antibiotics; they wanted to admit him. Not! They gave him a big tube of Amoxcillin by a needle into the arm vein - we thought it would blow!

Next one - sign on his door - probably means observation?????

After 3+ hours we get the discharge - the sweet female doctor named Barbara S.... gave me the prescription and said it had someone else's name and address on it because that is the only way it would work - Ross did not have "a card" (National Health I assume). When I asked how we could pay for this (we had been counting our English and Polish money) - they did not know - Dr. says "You do not have to pay this time".... it was FREE. When we got the prescriptions filled the next day the pharmacist down the street from Hotel Saski asked Ross if that was his address; when he said no, she said "OK" and gave him the stuff.

These are the discharge papers - I was fooling around with google translate and I came upon something on the 2nd page in bold: Data i godzina agonu pacjenta - translated means Date and time of death of patient - fortunately it was blank.

Bottom line: got good care - don't want to do it again! Got up the next morning and did the Auschwitz-Birkenau tour! Ready now for the next adventure.