Notes From...the Waiting Room

Private clinics vs public canals, a Dionysian festival and the Latins prepare for Lent...

(Carnival in Rome, Johannes Lingelbach  (1622–1674) Source: Public Domain)

Primum non nocere. (First, do no harm)
~ Hippocrates, Greek physician to whom the Hippocratic Oath is attributed

[Ed Note: Today’s mailing is a day late… the reason for which will be made clear presently…]

Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...

Something practical for today’s musing, dear reader, with advanced apologies. (We promise something wholly impractical in Thursday’s issue, by way of amends.)

We awoke in the middle of the night with a dull ache in the lower left abdomen. Not painful enough to worry that we hadn’t bothered to learn the appropriate  emergency numbers, the discomfort was nonetheless sufficient to prevent a fitful night’s rest. 

So we tossed... and turned... and, as midnight cynics are wont to do, calmly awaited the worst. 

Came morning and still the pang declined to abate. Even our ritual double-espresso elixir appeared only to embolden its resolve. A light steak lunch did little to help matters either. By early afternoon, we were in the back of a taxicab, en route to the clinic, reading on our cellular phone a note from dear wifey: “Asclepius speed!”

More below...

---

Apollo and Dionysus

As we type these words, it is the final day of a fin de super largo down here at the End of the World. (That is, a four-day, “super long weekend.”) As such, pious Latinos have dutifully downed tools, from the top to the tip of the continent, in somber observance of that most sacred of Catholic holidays... Carnival! 

Known variously around the world as Shrove or Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day or Mardis Gras, today marks the last day of frenzied celebrations before the looming Lenten fast. The word “Carnival” itself is said to derive from the Latin carne levare, “remove meat” ... or perhaps carne vale, “farewell to meat.” (Either way, the carnivorous Argentines don’t stand a chance of making it the full 40 days, best intentions notwithstanding.)

As for the characteristics of the celebrations themselves, with their colorful costumes, throbbing music, enthusiastic dancing and general, stomachache-inducing overconsumption, Carnival takes its cues from the Greek and Roman festivals of Anthesteria (Jan-Feb) and Saturnalia (Dec), respectively. 

Commemorations of rebirth and renewal, these ancient festivities represented turns in the cosmic and seasonal cycles, during which orgiastic, Dionysian chaos replaced the Apollonian calm and order of the day. 

We mention all this not by accident, but rather by coincidence.

As we’ve been remarking in these pages since the beginning of the year, the great wheel is turning down here at the End of the World... from the Old, Established Order to a New, Spontaneous Disorder... from controlled and centralized power, to uncontrolled and decentralized energy... from crushing centripetal force to liberating centrifugal vitality. 

What’s more, the forces are at work everywhere one looks... even doubled over, clutching one’s porky, middle-aged flank, in the emergency clinic of a South American hospital... 

---

In the Waiting Room

The guardia at Swiss Medical was empty, local porteños having wisely deferred their pressing medical emergencies until after the Carnival festivities. Save for a half-staffed regiment of pregnant Russians and a few well-attired, septuagenarian Argentines (paperbacks firmly in hand), we had the spiffy, modern waiting room practically to ourselves. 

As we perused the pages of our own novel (W.G Sebald's Austerlitz – not bad, so far...), we noticed a sly and familiar dial on the news channel above the reception desk, one belonging to a certain Argentine politician of decidedly serpentine repute. 

The human-shaped shifter was standing in front of a newly-constructed tunnel in one of the capital’s provincial neighborhoods... a tunnel that, in his own words (according to our loose translation), “neither Milei nor the private market could possibly have delivered.” 

And by Jove, he was right! 

Five minutes into the useful idiot’s blathering diatribe, las fuerzas del cielo opened their heavenly floodgates, swiftly turning the impossible public tunnel into an impassable public canal. See for yourself...

(Politicians up to their necks in lies…)

Meanwhile, back in the “dog-eat-dog,” “profits-over-people” private sector... where high quality, affordable healthcare is but a pipe dream of utopian, free market evangelists...

... we heard our number called and proceeded directly to the polite and professional attention of a perfectly capable nurse. Our vitals there checked and registered, we were invited to take a seat in the next room, where we would be seen by a doctor as soon as possible.

Barely had ol’ Sebald had time to paint another atmospheric Borgesian recollection (within a recollection) when, again, our number appeared on the digital screen and we found ourselves in front of a bright young doctor who, by some miracle of the modern age, had our preliminary data already displayed on her computer screen. 

After a convivial powwow on what brought us to Argentina and life in the Paris of the South in general (what happened to a considered bedside manner, anyway?), the doctor got to her gentle prodding and poking. A working prognosis soon in hand, she then accompanied us back to the reception desk and, in rapid fire Medico-Spanish, instructed the relevant party to organize lab work (pathology) and an ecografía (ultrasound), “ahorita, por favor.” 

Both tests thus performed inside 15-20 minutes, including the obligatory “No me digas que estoy embarazada,” quip with the sonographer, and your slightly diluted editor was back in front of his cheerful doctora in time for her to write a prescription and tell us what dear readers have suspected all along:

“It’s nothing serious. You’re just full of gas.”

---

Trigger Warning... practical information below: 

As anyone who has enjoyed quality private medical care outside of the developed world will readily testify, the experience is nothing like what you’ve been conditioned to expect. To the extent that the market is unencumbered by reams of regulatory red tape and busybody administrative nonsense, it is freed to compete for each and every customer it can satisfy.

Full medical coverage for a family of three, including all the bells and whistles, runs us about $350/month (including a special provision for coverage in the US). It should be noted, “full medical” outside the US means just that... full medical. That’s full dental… round the clock specialist care... private, door-to-door ambulance service... plus certain elective procedures, too. (Our plan even covers LASIK eye surgery, for example, as well as cosmetic procedures we a) didn’t know existed and b) have never before seen in the wild.)

“Full medical” also means no stealthy copays. No lurking deductibles. No out of pocket expenses while at the clinic. In fact, during the whole aforementioned ordeal – which took less than 2 hours, all told – we did not remove our wallet once. We simply gave our credential number, answered a few basic questions (surname, age, birthdate), and were promptly afforded the kind of care we have come to expect and for which we are happy to pay. 

Meanwhile, politicians will stand in floodwater up to their necks and tell you the private market is unable to deliver even the most basic infrastructure... while in reality, it is capable of more than their pedestrian minds could ever hope to imagine.

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman