A Hospitable Hospital

Last year I was in Copenhagen. On one odd Sunday I had an unprecedented attack of asthma. I left my apartment early in the morning and went out looking for a hospital. Eventually I ended up in Ritz hospital while the asthma was on. I was sent off to the intensive care unit where a nurse immediately applied all the paraphernalia on me that was required to abate the intensity of the attack.  For instance, the nurse fixed an oxygen mask on my mouth and checked other things such as the blood pressure, and so on.

After that I was moved to Hvidovre hospital in an ambulance. This hospital is also located in Copenhagen. There I was given a room and a bed to sleep in. Adequate care was also taken about my illness. I lived there for around a couple of days (or nights). The doctors gave me appropriate inhalers and noted down my medical history properly. I was also given nice food. As a matter of fact, I remember, that on one occasion when a food menu was given to me, I inquired whether the meat was halal or not. I was assured that all the meet that was cooked in the hospital was halal keeping in view that the hospital was frequented by Muslims. I found it quite impressive.

I stayed there for a couple of days and that time was quite relaxing. Similarly, a few months prior to that I also had a chance to spend a couple of nights in the same hospital (i.e. Hvidovre hospital). The reason was that a friend of mine was sick. He also had asthma. We went to the RedCross first. They have an office close the HovedBaneGarden (the central railway station of Copenhagen). The personnel at RedCross are also very friendly and extremely vigilant about the random patients that come to them. They sent us off to Hvidovre Hospital seeing the emergency of the poor plight of my friend. 

My friend was admitted immediately in the hospital. I remember that a funny doctor came in to see him. He had a complete look at his condition. He then weaved his hands in the air and told him, “I will not let you die tonight.” To sum it up, he was also taken care of very well. I also stayed in the hospital with my friend. It is also worth mentioning that all of this nice treatment was given both of the times free of charge. This is to say that we were not charged any penny. And I believe that this is important to acknowledge.

Other people in the hospital were also very nice and humane. I am particularly very impressed by the egalitarianism of Europe in general. This was exhibited to a great extent by the staff of Hvidovre hospital and the RedCross. I hope that the vast majority of our country would also adopt this kind of service oriented attitude. I deferred writing about this for a long time. However, I believe that this is quite important to acknowledge such events and gestures in a reasonable manner.

  by  t_scholz