Imagine my fear.  I wake up in the middle of the night, my left eye throbbing.  I’d gone to bed with it red for two nights in a row now, but the pain was minimal.  But now it was throbbing and keeping me awake.

Worse — I’m in a foreign country.  I don’t know if I have health insurance.  There’s a space between when the old employer tells the health insurance company that you are no longer employed and when the health insurance company received your private and oh-so-expensive premium.  And I’ve had problems with my left eye before — a corneal erosion that led to a debridement.  Don’t ask — just know you’d rather tear your eye out than go through that again.

But my friend who lives in the foreign country urges me to the hospital, and what can I do since I’m not schedule to fly home for another 8 days.  I end up visiting two hospitals — a general hospital and then a eye hospital.

No one — no one, asked for my insurance card.

No one asked how I was going to pay for it.

No one balked at treating me.

And it didn’t take me six months to see a doctor.

And when I finally paid for my prescription, it was UK$7.65!

Why isn’t health care like this everywhere?