Ah! Talk about over reacting... can anyone top this please!!

I got back from London on Friday, which I will talk about shortly, but this is something that you would find much much more interesting!

I had fever Sunday evening. With the current situation in Hong Kong and UK... messages were sent to my cell constantly, "WHO alert raised to phase 6, Macau, without local confirmed cases, bla bla bla..." Yup, WHO declared an H1N1 pandemic... the first global pandemic since 1968.

I knew they will at least send me to the hospital if I went to the clinic if not quarantine me for 7 days for observation. So I waited for a night hoping that the temperature would get lower or I could just recover on my own. I took Adrian's advise and took a Panadol. I went to bed but when I got up in the morning I felt like shit.

I text the Admin in the office and told her that I had a temperature and won't be reporting to work. So at just about 10, I went to the clinic. Just like I expected, "I'm sorry, but according to standard procedure, I have to call an ambulance and send you to the hospital for a quick test just in case..." Ya, right. Quick. "How quick?" "Just about 4 hours they'll have the result." Great, I'm officially a "suspected case of infected H1N1". And so the ambulance arrived in no time. Got me all "geared up" and drove me to the government hospital...

Look...

Honestly it was no fun at all. First they took samples from the back of your mouth, somewhere near the throat which was very very irritating. And then I was sat by the hallway to wait for the result. YES! THEY EXPECTED ME -- A SICK PERSON, WITHOUT GIVEN ANY FORM OF MEDICAL TREATMENT, TO SIT AT THE HALLWAY (VERY WELL CONTAINED) AND WAIT FOR THE QUICK H1N1 VIRUS TEST RESULT (WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE 4 HOURS, AND THEY CALL IT QUICK) ON SOME HARD SHELL OLD STADIUM STYLE CHAIR!!! How so very nice of them!!

I arrived at the hospital at 10:30am or so. The paramedics told me to stay in the ambulance before the hospital could open the door to the "Special Emergency Room" (this is translated from how they call it in Cantonese) for me.
While waiting, a member of the paramedics asked, "how are you feeling?"
"Alright"
"Then why did you go to see the doctor?"
"I have fever since last night!"
He sorta shut up. I wasn't feel like dying so I said I was alright!! What did he expect anyway? Me passing out in front of him??? Strange people.

I finally got into the "Special Emergency Room". The doctor came to take my temperature (which has been taken sooooo many times in the clinic, the ambulance) and the sample for the so called Quick Test for H1N1 flu -- swine flu... oink oink!! In Malaysia, unless you're dying you don't call the ambulance... I'm not impressed by how Malaysians do it but I'm not impressed here either!

Then they left me there in the hallway... ... ... with a bottle of water... ... ...

At just about 12:30pm, they sent me lunch. Nothing fancy, just edible, with a banana and a bowl of soup with a big piece of chicken skin floating in it!!

My butt started to hurt (because it doesn't have a lot of cushioning, it's just a tiny bum unfortunately), and I was getting really tired and bored...

"Erm... Nurse, am I meant to sit here and wait for my result?"
"Ya, you have to."
"but I'm sick, you see, I'm tired, I'm sleepy and these chairs are crap to sit in..."
She had no choice but to offer me the only bed they have in the ER, you know those damn hard bed, with only 1.5" cushion and just about 2.5' x 6'L... OK better than none. I slept in it until just about 5:30pm -- I talked to Adrian again and he was just wondering if I started to snort... haha Just after we were done talking, the nurse told me that the result came back negative but they have to wait for the fax to come through before they can release me... fine. It's just been 7 hours, I'm alright. Don't worry, take your time. I'm alright.

And so I waited. The fax came in finally, at about 6... I thought that was slow. Nope the doctor was even slower. A doctor has to come and examine me for the last time and give me a proper diagnose and then release me... hmm... I thought he got seriously lost trying to come to this "Special Emergency Room" (it's obviously very new if you know what I mean). He arrived at approx. 6:30pm. Thank goodness Doc, you found your way!! Congrats!! His name if translated into English, is "Hot Spring"... and he was sweating big time when he got there I tell you... He'll lose a lot of weight doing this... I mean wearing the "protective gear" namely the coat, the mask and the shower cap not for shower" hahaha! He took my temperature again (they took it so many times I think they took it away...) prescribed me some paracetamol and let me go.

There was already a girl who returned to Macau from Canada via Japan & HK, who's been held for 2 days... she had a temperature but the first test came back negative. However, because it takes time for the virus to "surface" (before any symptom) after a person is infected, they will take her sample for another test later in the day. She wasn't a quiet girl in that room... She had rashes and it was itching like crazy, which drove her mad... it started last night but they didn't give her the cream for it until just about 3pm the next day... she was crying for it desperately... poor girl.

Also, there are a couple of other girls checking in when I was waiting for the result of the QUICK TEST. One came in, a German woman, who came to the hospital on her own, whom the nurses could hardly understand, with all the symptoms, but they have decided to send her to the normal ER because she came from Nanjing, via HK. Nowhere near USA/UK/Japan... ha!! I had to help translate when the nurses tried to find out where she came from.

And there was this girl who arrived in an ambulance without any sort of symptoms. She came because she was sat near a confirmed case in her flight to Guangzhou. She was complaining about the mask suffocating her as she was arriving and asked if she could take it off... but of course, she was advised not to. And then the nurse asked he to fill out some form, ah... there was this question, "do you have problem breathing?" she said, "well, of course, after I put this mask on!!" hahaha!! and me and the nurse laughed big time! Yup, we all suffer from that!!!

I pity the nurse though, she has to wear it all day long except lunch. No one can breath normal in these masks! Crazy!

Now, tell me if you could find a city besides HK & Macau (which basically follows everything, if possible, HK does & enforces) which would over react like this...