The flip side of the perspective, The Prologue

So, when the taxi driver dropped me off at some parking lot in the tangled maze of hospital buildings, I found the clinic I was looking for, with extreme difficulty, as I told you then, along with the events in that hospital. And then, after I paid the high amount for the tests, I heard in the hallway a rather elderly woman, with whom I had previously met in the laboratory offices, calling a taxi company and giving the following instructions: A car to come to such and such a clinic and take me home in such and such a neighborhood.

I was a little surprised because when the taxi dropped me off at the parking lot, I thought that was where the taxis dropped off passengers and they weren’t allowed to go to the individual clinics. Now I was even glad that I didn’t tip him, this time the tip wasn’t deserved.
Because in my surprise, I asked the woman: Excuse me, do taxis really come this far and can I order one from the front instead of having to go all the way to the main entrance (which is quite far and hard to find)? "Of course they do", the woman said.

So, I called the same taxi company again. There was no way that driver was going to come and pick me up a third time - that was clear. I gave my instructions and waited. Then, a few minutes later, I received a phone call.

"I am the taxi driver and I am waiting for you outside on the street."

"Where on the street", I asked. "I ordered a taxi in front of the clinic."

"Well, okay, but I don't know where this clinic is", he replied.

Nice job, I thought, for a taxi driver not to know where the address is, and yet he accepted this request from the dispatcher and confirmed that he would fulfill it.

But this doesn't surprise me in the least, after all, I'm in the absurd country of Bulgaria and there's no point in getting angry about it, I just have to do something to solve this problem, there's simply no other way.
"Where exactly are you on the street?"
"Behind a hotel", he answers.
Hotel, hotel, I think frantically, bеcause the taxi's meter is already spinning right now. And then I remember that when I went to look for the location of the only ATM in the courtyard of the hospital, because in this hospital they demand large sums of money from their patients, but there is no possibility of paying with a card and they have to be withdrawn, and for this withdrawal the bank takes you money... but I will not go into the details of the criminal schemes of the institutions in the country, I saw a hotel.
"I'm coming", I said, "don't move from this place."
And then, with the power of memory, through the tangled paths and broken roads of the hospital yard, I navigated to this hotel and went out onto the street, saw the taxi, stopped almost in the middle of the lane, getting in was difficult, but I managed to get in and here I am inside.

"I'm new," the driver says immediately. And of course, it's me who is tolerant of "new" people, I know very well how difficult it is when you start a new job, whatever it is. And working as a taxi driver in the capital is disgusting, no matter how much the previous driver convinced me otherwise.

Then the conversation started, and the beginning of this conversation was a little nerve-wracking because he asked me what I was doing at this hospital, and I told him that I was sent here for a test that is only done here in the country and nowhere else.

"This is nonsense", he said immediately. "They lied to you."
"No, they didn't lie to me", I replied in amazement.
I was really amazed, and of course, nervous. Everything I had to do in the past few hours had been quite tiring - searching, waiting, then searching again, then wandering again, then persuasion, discussions, everything. And then a taxi driver who can't find the address of an order he voluntarily accepted, and then expresses an opinion on administrative-medical issues.
"I'm telling you this is a scam, the doctors here have put you in some kind of scheme," he continues.

Then, after everything I had experienced in the last three days, yes, I was quite disappointed with the way I was treated in that hospital, they had somehow left me lying there for 3 days almost without doing anything to me.
The woman I was in the same room with had said: They are wasting your time here and it is obvious to the naked eye.

At the same time, I was sent there with the protection of a good doctor I personally know, I was certainly introduced to the attending physician as my brother's sister and I was sure, from this point of view, that I was accepted as a patient with attention and responsibility, and it should have been, seeing even how they treated the other patients in the ward, who came and went every three days, that they had done everything in their power to establish my diagnosis and prescribe the next step in my treatment.

At that moment I trusted this doctor who shortly afterwards even made me call my GP in front of her to get a referral to another specialist so that she could arrange for me а very difficult to access and а very expensive examination. She even asked to speak to my GP on the phone when he refused to give me this referral, but he had already hung up. She seemed concerned. About me and my health.

She told me to change my GP and then call her again to initiate the next steps in the diagnosis, etc., etc...

Until the moment she stopped answering my messages in which I asked her to send me the results of the last tests she had done on the day of my discharge. And until I find out that my brother had never actually heard of her, and it is very likely that she also did not know him and had never treated me as a "VIP" patient, (I mean - humanly and normal, not really VIP, because in Bulgaria to be treated humanely and with attention, really means VIP).

There was another doctor I went to to have my stitches removed from the tests from the second hospital, he also told me a few days later that this was not true, that only there, in this second hospital and nowhere else, these tests were performed, and he also told me that I was probably involved in some kind of scheme. I was skeptical then even towards him, even though he is one of the few doctors in Bulgaria, not to say the only one, that I trust, he is a serious and good doctor, also a human.

Simply because the scheme, whatever it was, was so finely crafted that I, even a sensitive and perpetually skeptical person, simply could not sense anything wrong with any of the actions. Everything was so well thought out.
Except for one thing: being told outright that you probably had cancer. As I told you before, it seemed, and still seems, to me abnormal for this news to be presented in this way, especially since it was more than likely false. But now it seems that this is the way to achieve everything. You scare a person to death and turn off their brain - they stop thinking out of fear and you can do anything with them - drag them from doctor to doctor, from test to test, from expensive examination to more expensive examination, which are done by doctors, who are probably acquaintances or friends, to drain the health insurance fund or to drain the patient's money in parallel and so on.

But then, right then, I had no way of knowing this, I didn't see it, there was no way of seeing it. Right then I was just scared.

"How do you know this?", I asked then with irritation, knowing that he had nothing to answer me to this question, that he couldn't take any position on this issue, because he was a taxi driver. And although taxi drivers in Bulgaria "know everything", they still couldn't know medicine.

And his answer surprised me even more.

But more on that, apparently, should be in a next post, again due to the length of the post.

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|