(AI)
1. With Covid raging, public hospitals became treatment centers for patients testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, so if anyone in the family had another illness, they would only go to a private hospital as a last resort. The pandemic was terrifying, and going to a private hospital, even if you were stronger than a strongman, would still drive you crazy with worries about advance payments, rapid test fees, service fees… a whole mess of expenses. The good thing is, the doctors and nurses are dedicated and incredibly kind. After all, patients are also customers, "gods."
At midnight, in the hospital, the voice of a country woman weeping and sobbing, yet sounding harsh and piercing, echoed through several floors… A nurse ran out: "Sister, my ward is for special care, full of elderly and seriously ill patients, please speak softly."
- Uh, uh, I'm sorry, but her mother is angry...
She recounted that her uncle had severe diabetes and, without any medication, was constantly weak. Her aunt and children were afraid of Covid, so no one took him to the hospital. When she visited, he was already delirious. Feeling sorry for him, she called an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital.
"The doctor told him to eat carefully, to divide his meals into smaller portions... But he wouldn't listen, he ate all sorts of things, and his blood sugar shot up! I restrained him, and his blood sugar went from 300 down to 200, I was overjoyed, but he kept scolding me. He even said, 'I don't need you to feed me, why are you feeding me? Now you won't even let me eat!'" She said this while wiping her runny nose on her pants.
- The doctor said he was very weak and had to urinate and defecate in bed. But he wouldn't cooperate. When they gave him an IV drip, he yanked it out, the bottle broke, and the tubing flew everywhere... I begged him, "Please, stay in bed. I'll clean up your pee and poop. If you keep going like this, the doctor will scold me, and I'll be mortified." He cursed, "It's my legs, I'll go wherever I want! Who's stopping me?"
She was resentful; she'd spent tens of millions of dong feeding him all week. She'd neglected her husband and children, leaving them to eat whatever they could find because none of them knew how to cook.
Call your aunt, ask for some help: - Who's in charge? Who borrowed the money? Where's the money to send?
My cousin's kids called: - Take him to the district hospital (wait, the district hospital has become a Covid treatment center, how can I take him there?), but you're going to raise him? Covid is everywhere, none of us can take care of him!
...She cried to her husband, her voice echoing in the night: "Honey, I think I'm going home, I'll even walk home. I've taken care of him, looked after him every little detail, and he curses me all the time!"
The nurse ran out again. She stood up, patted her pants vigorously, and said, "I'm sorry, miss, I was just so angry! Anyway, let me go get him some porridge; he's probably hungry again now!"
2. Huddled in the deserted hospital corridor, carrying the nurse's can that's always there for male smokers as an ashtray, I take a deep drag to satisfy my craving, each puff of smoke swirling and dissipating into the suffocating silence. The young city of the past few months, through CT16, CT16+, CT16++, and back to CT16… is now silent, desolate, like a "young old man" who has just absorbed the pain of being betrayed in love.
Only the hospital remained abuzz with the sounds of weeping, laughter, and the fate of the deceased. In a secluded corner, the benevolent Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara gazed wistfully into the distance; the Virgin Mary looked down upon the earthly realm…
Back in the hospital room, on the empty bed, the baby's woolen hat lay silently. The young couple had rushed their child to Children's Hospital 1, forgetting it! With the pandemic raging, Saigon was seeing thousands of infections and countless deaths from Covid every day; transferring to that hospital was like gambling with fate, with no knowing whether they would win or lose.
Not even two months old, the baby would cry uncontrollably whenever her mother put her down on the bed. The old woman, exhausted, managed to open her eyes and turn to her: "Hold her up, cradle her in your arms, and rock her; she'll stop crying."
The young mother's eyes were red and swollen, while the young father—wearing a red shirt and red shorts—stood beside her, scolding: "I told you, you need to keep a close eye on the child. You're glued to your phone all day, and now look what's happened. With all the epidemics, if we move to Saigon and one of them gets infected, we'll all die together."
- Honey, our child has sepsis, the doctor said we have to transfer him to Saigon. We're lucky that Children's Hospital 1 accepted him.
- The cost of COVID PCR tests, protective clothing, ambulance services… Oh my God!
The young mother sobbed, and the child, as if telepathically connected, cried even louder. The mother hurriedly pulled up her shirt and put her nipple to the baby's mouth.
The young priest turned his back and walked out, his face scowling. His bright red T-shirt and red shorts flashed past, dazzling the eyes.
In the hospital room, the young mother's phone rang incessantly. Her father-in-law, mother-in-law; her own father, her own mother… everyone shared the same worry: the epidemic was spreading in Saigon, and now that she was being taken there, what would happen?
The nurse walked past the intensive care unit with the PCR test results: "Please pay the hospital bill, then come back up to get the birth certificate."
The young father, unable to find the birth certificate, grumbled: "Keep it! Even my grandfather wouldn't be able to find it!"
The young mother handed the baby over, and the young father cradled her in his arms, rocking her gently. The baby broke free from her mother and cried loudly.
- Hush, my child, Daddy loves you, loves you so much. We're going to Saigon, you'll get better soon. Hush, Daddy loves you...
In a secluded corner of the hospital, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara remains enigmatic. The Virgin Mary continues to gaze down upon the earthly realm.
3. There are no longer specific stories, of individual lives, simply because Covid has made me hesitant to step outside the intensive care unit and wander around – as was the case during my six years of caring for patients from Tay Ninh to Saigon.
During this agonizing pandemic, countless cases of serious illnesses, or even common seasonal diseases, have been heartbreaking due to exorbitant hospital bills. Sometimes, patients are forced to request discharge from the hospital, regardless of their fate, gambling with luck, hoping their name won't be on the "Book of the Dead."
One afternoon, at the hospital's billing counter to pay the "advance payment," a dark-skinned young man in shorts, his legs stained from wading through mud and planting rice, stood sighing. The nurse standing next to him said, as if explaining: "Our hospital is waiving the CT scan and ultrasound fees for your father… Please try to pay the emergency treatment costs (something like that, because I only heard bits and pieces), it's only 390,000 dong, and then we'll arrange for a car to take your father home."
The pickpocket had only one 200,000 dong note, a few 100,000 and 50,000 dong notes… After paying the fee, he only had a little over 100,000 dong left. A lingering sigh, half suppressed, half lost somewhere… in the vast, silent space.
…At night, with the rain pouring down, in the dark corner of the hospital corridor, two drug addicts, like Bo Ya and Zi Qi, confided in each other from a distance of 2 meters. The young man from Long Hoa recounted that his father suffered from cervical spondylosis, some kind of nerve compression, and was almost paralyzed on one side. Their house was near Long Hoa Hospital, but his father stubbornly refused to go there, fearing he would waste money, and insisted he drive him to the Provincial General Hospital instead. Upon arriving, he learned that the hospital had become a COVID-19 treatment center, so he had to turn back. His father sat in the back, constantly on the verge of falling out. With one hand on the handlebars and the other reaching behind to hold on, he could only manage to drive as far as NT.
During the pandemic, when illness struck, everyone suddenly started mentioning the Provincial General Hospital, even though they themselves might have previously criticized its service... I won't elaborate on that, as it would require listing objective and subjective reasons, mechanisms, human resources, and so on and so forth. They mention it simply because, with their health insurance card, even serious illnesses only cost a few million dong.
At the other end of NT Hospital is the rapid testing site, busy both morning and afternoon, mostly with delivery drivers. Occasionally, someone quietly walks into the row of rooms labeled "Isolation area for suspected cases." After four waves of the pandemic, it seems everyone has mentally prepared themselves to become a COVID-19 positive case at any moment, especially those who still have to work to make a living... so they walk calmly, viewing it as a professional risk.
In a secluded corner of the hospital, beneath the ethereal statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and the Virgin Mary gazing down upon the earthly realm, a few expectant mothers sat enjoying the breeze each afternoon. It wasn't until the day the elderly woman was preparing to be discharged and return home for self-isolation that I realized that, despite standing close together, these two sacred figures remained lonely. Whether by chance or some deliberate arrangement, they were separated by a tree with spreading branches…
Dang Hoang Thai
Tay Ninh province, fourth lockdown, 2021
Source: https://baolongan.vn/ky-uc-mua-covid-a198512.html
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