I generally don’t get sick, but that was a distant truth for the old me, the me that didn’t spend my days in a box of people representing every age group and thus every sickness that frequents each age group. Teaching first graders is like swimming in concentrated illness, but they’re adorable, so I’ll forgive them for infecting me.
Getting Sick in Albania
Remember my post about taking a sick day last Sunday to rest up and recover? Yeah, I was finally starting to recover from that cold and feeling nice and rested when I wrote it. I was feeling so ambitious I even went ahead and whipped up the Durres post and scheduled it for Monday, and started patting myself on the back about getting back into the swing of blogging. I went to bed feeling pretty great- rested and ready for the week ahead.
Instead I woke up at 4 a.m., frantically clawing my way out of blankets so I could stumble to the bathroom and proceed to vomit violently for about two hours, interspersed with brief interludes where I lay on the cool tile, curled up on my side around the base of the toilet, whimpering. Apparently such proximity was still too much distance to cover, as I ended up puking on myself towards the end. It felt as though I had swallowed a large, flaming brick. Norovirus, we meet again.
I finally dragged into the living room, where it took me half an hour to e-mail my boss with sub plans. The rest of the day I couldn’t keep down water, and I hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before. I was getting delirious with a mild fever, starving, and the stomach pain was getting worse. I felt like a husk by the end of the miserable day.
The point, and I do have one, is that here’s where all you potential Albanian travelers get the benefit of a firsthand review of the Spitali Amerikan (American Hospital) in Tirana.
Care During a Stay at Spitali Amerikan Hospital in Tirana
My boss, Jeff, came to get me that evening and took me to the hospital. Please note this is a private, and thus much more expensive, hospital than the local providers. It was as advertised: clean, modern, and staffed with English speaking doctors*. I was taken to the emergency room where I was immediately treated by an incredibly attentive and kind doctor who actually talked to me like a person and asked how I was adjusting to living and working in Tirana. In between dry heaving, we had a nice conversation.
He then listened to my lungs (since I still had that cough), poked in my belly, and took my temperature. I had my blood drawn (gloves, everything in packages, just as you’d expect anywhere) and then I was given IV fluids. The blood was analyzed for signs of infection while I napped fitfully for almost four hours as the IV worked its rehydrating magic. I had my own bed and curtained off area, the nurses were attentive (they did not speak English from my experience) and everytime they checked on me they would do this precious thing of patting my foot through the blanket as they walked off. The entire atmosphere was calm and peaceful.
In my last hour there a German tourist took up residence in the bed beside mine. As we were separated with only a sheet it was impossible to not hear him say that he had been up since 4 a.m. vomiting, and he had terrible stomach pain that wouldn’t go away. If it wouldn’t have been weird, and if I could have held my head up, I would have been all “Same, my fellow foreign friend! What an interesting intestinal coincidence!”
I pondered a high five, or, less aggressive, but certainly more creepy and intrusive, a collegial thumbs up snaking around the edge of the sheet.
Instead I just went back to sleep and enjoyed the relief of cold liquid in my veins.
I was checked on regularly by kind nurses, and once the IV ran dry I left the hospital with a prescription for Cipro, electrolytes, and pro-biotic powder. We hit up the pharmacy next to the hospital, filled the prescription immediately, and headed on home.
Cost of Visiting Spitali Amerikan Emergency Room
For all of the meds plus the blood draw, blood test, IV, and fluids I spent about $100 USD. For comparison’s sake to the US “system of healthcare” (does it deserve to even use those words?), in America about 3 years ago I had an allergic reaction to a medication. I was taken to the ER and given an IV with fluids and anti-histamine and then left alone in a corner. The total cost? About three thousand dollars for this experience, once all the bills rolled in. Compared to that, an out of pocket expense of $100 USD is pretty great and won’t break you even if you do end up with a surprise visit of norovirus during your travels.
Tuesday I woke up feeling better by the slimmest of margins, but totally wasted, and Wednesday and Thursday continued the same into Friday. Basically I ended up bed-ridden for the rest of the week. I think a huge part of it towards the end of this week was the Cipro making me feel like hell as it worked its way through my body killing everything in sight- I told a friend I felt like it was kitten scruffing me by the back of the neck and rendering me totally immobile. Kitten scruffing by pharmaceuticals was not really the way I wanted to start my time in Tirana, but here we are.
Would I Recommend Spitali Amerikan?
I mean, I hope no reading this doesn’t have to go, and I hope I don’t have to go again, but yeah. After my experienceI have no qualms with the ability of the American Hospital to take care of normal to pretty awful sicknesses, and I would be confident with having a broken bone set there, or getting stitches. I am definitely better off here than in many other places in the world. The care was certainly both more attentive and far cheaper than what I experienced in the US in emergency rooms.
*I’m not at all saying that doctors everywhere in the world should speak English and pander to me. I’m just specifying this because it was pertinent information for future travelers/people living in Tirana to know what to expect. I’m also specifying things like clean needles/gloves to describe that it is an establishment up to par with modern hospital standards, not because I was preparing to see them spit on an old rusty needle, say “It’ll do” and jam it into my arm with bare hands. I think a lot of the info on the internet pertaining to medical services in Albania is woefully out of date and/or inaccurate, so I’m just trying to say, this hospital was legit, I felt well cared for, and it was incredibly cheap for my Western, US context.
**This was not food poisoning or a problem unique to Albania- just a normal, awful stomach virus- so don’t be worried you will come here and this will happen to you. Unless you come here and teach a grip of first graders. Then it will probably happen to you.
Narrator’s Note: This was originally published October 2012 on Blogger. I made a return visit to the Spitali Amerikan later this same year (2012) for outpatient surgery, and on a follow-up to that surgery I met random Polish motorcyclists who had been in a wreck and had a friend in a coma, hospitalised, with surgery there. While they were waiting for their friend, they ended up staying in my house… wait, this is a whole other story I need to write. Anyway, the point is, even surgeries and trauma care went well. I returned again in 2015 on a backpacking trip, where a hostel mate fell off a roof, cracked his head, and was taken there for brain trauma care. From all accounts, it has only continued to expand and improve and offer excellent medical care in Tirana.
