Varanasi Hospital

So, as usual plans change. We planned on staying in Varanasi for one night max. We are still here. Skyler got sick our second day here with a fever. We thought that he might feel better the next day but instead he woke up the next morning shaking uncontrollably with a fever still. It was almost like he was spasming. So we decided to go to the hospital. You never know what you might have when you are in India. What an experience. We showed up at 7am and we were immediately taken to the emergency room. There was a man laying on a bed next to skyler, moaning in pain with a gas mask on. He didn't look like he knew where he was and was shifting and rolling around. At one point his blanket fell and a got accidental peak at him. His wife was crying by his bed and she looked terrified. There was a mouse hanging out in one corner of the room, mosquitoes flying all around and the room was not clean. It was not exactly reassuring.
Sky was in bad shape and they asked us some questions and then immediately hooked him up to an IV. Sky asked them what it was and they said it was an IV. "Yes, of course, but what is it?" They could not tell him. I looked at the label and it was just sodium, potassium and calcium water for dehydration. Then they started giving him shots and every time he asked what it was, they gave very vague answers, and when he asked what was wrong with him they said they didn't know. If they didn't know, why where they treating him. Then they said that he would be put in a private room. They took blood, urine and stool samples and put him in the room, which was nice, and just left him there for 6 hours. Sky asked so many questions about when we would get results, and how long he would be there and how much the room was costing us and no one would answer us. It was always, "yes sir, 10 minutes" and then never came back. Finally a doctor came in and Sky was very frustrated by then. The doctor kind of told him what his results were but not what he would be taking. At this point Sky's fever was gone and he was no longer shaking, but still sick. Our thinking was, why do we have to stay in this room if we are not doing anything but waiting. We knew that we were paying just to be in there and didn't think that we needed it. The doctor was very rude and unhelpful and it turned into an argument. Skyler said he wanted to leave and asked them to take the needle out of his arm and they refused. It was like they were holding him against his will and they had his passport and insurance card. It wasn't until there was a huge fus, that a man that spoke good english and was willing to listen to us, that it got sorted out. A new doctor came in and told us exactly what was going on and we found out that they wanted Sky to stay for 3 days. He has a urinary track infection and some kind of stomach infection. They still could not tell us how much all this was costing us. We asked if they could just prescribe him meds and send us on our way. Surely there are other patients that need a room more than Sky does. We were told that because Sky is a foreigner that they must take special care of him. If he were Indian, they would do just that and send him away, but he is american so they have to make sure that he leaves well. It is because most Indian's can't afford the private room. All I could think of was that poor old man in that dirty room downstairs. He should have a private room. We didn't find out until today that the private room is 20,000 rupees per day. That is 400 dollars. What?! It wouldn't matter if we didn't have to pay up front. We will get our money back but if we stay to long we would not have the money to pay. We were upset. Why was this not told to us earlier? Now we owe them 800 dollars for Sky to get medicine twice a day. We simply tried to explain our situation to our new doctor and he got mad at us. He was being very defensive and accusing us of being racist almost. What a nightmare. Now we had the hospital administration in the room. They calmed the doctor and Sky down and they said that after tomorrow the billing would stop no matter how long Sky had to stay. So now we are both staying at the hospital. Sky is better but still not feeling 100%. They gave him a shot in is ass and told him it was a pain killer. Now his head, stomach AND ass hurts. We hope we will be able to get out of this town soon. I figure that if they aren't going to get any money out of us they won't keep him there. I just hope that he will be okay and that he won't get another sickness just from being in the hospital with people sticking needles in his arm all the time. There is another girl from Boston there that we spoke with that was having the same problems. She plans on leaving tomorrow no matter what they say. Oh India.