debbizsc

I was hospitalized at the Ospedale SS and wanted to write from a “patient’s” perspective. On the first day of a 12-day vacation in Italy I fell and broke my leg (tibial plateau fracture) while on a boat in Venice. When the boat docked, the captain told our escort (in Italian) that he couldn’t take me to the ER and my husband would have to carry me about 1000 yards to another boat! I was in agony with pain. Finally got to this hospital and NO ONE spoke English or attempted to nor did anyone offer assistance with translation. We figured out through our tour guide that my leg was broken and that I needed surgery ASAP. Also that I had to spend THREE weeks there in bed! We had no choice. Took me to a barren 4-bed ward (again no English) with manual beds and no privacy curtains. It took us awhile to realize you have to bring in your own liquids (water, etc)! I was taken for an MRI, etc. then surgery was two days later. My husband said that they had me sign a consent for two pints of blood while I was just out of recovery and not coherent! I was totally at their mercy. The second week there, a patient in the room went into respiratory distress and the entire ER team came in to treat her in front of us! She died! No family is allowed in the room when the doctors do rounds so my husband never got to talk to them! My insurance company sent a rescue nurse (Thank God!) to fly home with us and the hospital would not give her any of my records or X-rays so when I got home my Ortho had nothing to go by. Thankfully he said the surgery looked good. They also left the catheter in for the three weeks I was there so I came home with a terrible UTI. This is a warning to anyone going there that’s not an Italian citizen….beware! And most importantly, buy trip insurance!

kja

What an awful experience, debbizsc. I'm very glad to learn the you came through it and that your physician says the surgery looked good. And yes, travel insurance -- with appropriate health coverage (I always look for a policy that includes hospital-of-one's-choice coverage and evacuation coverage) can be really important.

Good luck with your continued recovery!

thursdaysd

What an ordeal! And yes, open wards are not unusual in Europe - four beds is actually on the small side. When I spent a night in a Swiss hospital I think there were six beds, but they were in a U round a tall filing cabinet. In England, back in the dark ages, they were much bigger.

PalenQ

Sorry for your needless travails but not all Italian hospitals are like that - also fell down - in Naples and smashed my head - bleeding like heck - anyway ended up in ER and had a friendly translator with me at all times from admisssion to ER to discharge to a taxi - for X-rays, stitches, etc. Everyone who so so helpful - now I was not there for weeks but they did not even charge me a cent for several hours of treatment and observation. they said they had no facilities to charge and collect being a single-payer national free system.

So don't paint all Italian hospitals as terrbile to non-Italians.

But again I feel very sorry for the unbelievable way how you were treated in Venice - and yes trip cancellation insurance a must to evacuate folks back home.

bilboburgler

Nasty, I'm very unimpressed by the boat captain.

historytraveler

So sorry this happened to you. Yes, a bit of a nightmare. I might've given the boat driver an excellent version of the Ugly American for refusing to take me to the other boat. Hard to believe he made your husband carry you a thousand yards! That is absolutely unacceptable even cruel.

Glad your ordeal is over and, best of all, that the surgery was done properly.

MoBro

OMG. What bad luck, to break your leg on the first day of your 12-day vacation!
Sorry to hear it and how awful it was to get treatment.

Thanks for sharing.

asps

I wonder if an Italian breaking a leg in US would be treated better, have a translator available and so on.

By the way, how much the Italian hospital did charge you?

xcountry

That is awful. And thank goodness for rescue nurses. They are the highest form of humanity.

As the old saying goes, break a leg with your recovery.

marvelousmouse

You were there for three weeks and your husband never found a translator to talk to the hospital or doctor?

It's a weird first post. I mean, the boat captain sounds like a jerk but everything else just sounds like either there was a procedure you were unaware of- like would a rescue nurse be able to even request records for a patient in the US? I would think you'd need to request those personally? Or not all that abnormal for a hospital. Maybe they didn't have time to remove your roommate before attempting to save their life? They had you sign a consent for what I'd assume was a necessary part of your treatment.

It sounds like a lousy bit of luck, and I don't like hospitals, but by your own admittance, they knew what they were doing, the surgery turned out fine and they didn't abuse you...so what exactly is the "beware" for?

bvlenci

The boat captain was a real jerk. Why didn't he just call an ambulance? He didn't have to take you to the emergency room personally.

There are definitely differences between European hospitals and American hospitals. The biggest difference is the cost. My daughter was hospitalized for tests once, and for a three-day stay, the cost was less than €500. My niece once was treated in the emergency room after fainting twice, and they did a whole battery of tests for heart conditions, as well as brain scans, electroencephalogram, etc. The entire cost was about €100.

In Italian hospitals, you're usually expected to provide not only your own beverages (except the hot milk they give you for breakfast), but also your own plate, glass, and cutlery. They don't give out hospital gowns; you have to have your own PJs.

I've been in the hospital three times here in Italy. I've always been in a double room, but it was always for scheduled surgery. Emergency cases sometimes can't be accommodated in the best rooms if there are no vacancies. I once had that happen to me in the US, years ago, when I was an emergency patient: I was in a ward with about a dozen people.

I'm very surprised that you couldn't get any records. We always get our X-rays, etc., on a CD. Sometimes you have to wait several days to get them. Maybe that was the problem?

All in all, I've had excellent medical treatment in Italy. It's much better than what my daughters get in the US.

thursdaysd

Actually, I would expect the insurance company to talk to the hospital. That is certainly what happened when I broke my wrist and wound up in the Swiss hospital.

Hadn't realized this was a first post. Also, I thought Venice had hospital boats - it certainly has cemetery boats. And what was the "escort"?

Ah, yes, there are hospital boats, and an emergency number to summon one:

http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/...nal-safety.htm

vincenzo32951

>>I wonder if an Italian breaking a leg in US would be treated better, have a translator available and so on.<<

Ridiculous. Why would "an Italian breaking a leg in the US" be treated differently from an American breaking a leg in the US?

Christina

I'm amazed some travel insurance company sent a nurse to Italy to escort someone home. Seriously? That is incredible service. I would like to know the name of that insurance company, actually, since I gather this post was a form of consumer advice.

I have a friend who is a translator for hospitals in the US where I live. It's a good job for her as she is a retired language teacher and fluent in both Spanish and French, so she works only part-time and can be on-call, but can work as she wishes. I'm sure a podunk hospital like where I grew up (a typical county hospital in Ohio) would not have such services, though, although they could perhaps get a Spanish-speaker around, but not French most likely. In any case, I'm sure major hospitals in major cities have translation services and people on call, but smaller hospitals wouldn't and they can't cover all languages, of course. Italian would not be as likely as French or Spanish, of course, or where I live now, various languages from Africa or India or China are more common than Italian.

Venice is a major city with a lot of tourista and I would expect hospitals there to have English translators, that does seem unusual. Hospitals not providing you water seems really bad, I'm shocked at that (or that you have to provide your own dishes). First, it seems kind of unsanitary or medically dangerous (what if someone was bringing in vodka as water, for example), second, what if you didn't have friends or family nearby, then what would they do? Let you dehydrate?

debbizsc

What do you mean it’s a weird first post? How insulting! And no, my husband wasn’t able to find anyone to translate and tried. The entire experience was a nightmare regardless of the fact that, thank God, the surgery was done well. Regarding the records....the insurance doctors requested the records as did I but they wouldn’t give them to us. I mentioned the roommate because there were no curtains, partitions, etc. it was like being in the middle of an ER and very upsetting. My orthopedist said they left the catheter in for three weeks because “they were too lazy to get me out of bed!” Everyone back in the States, including family in the medical profession, was shocked at them keeping me in bed all that time and making me sign for my own blood transfusion (they wouldn’t let my husband sign) while I was still groggy from anesthesia!

I’m not saying every hospital in Italy is bad....just that this one was a horrible experience and I’ve seen similar posts on other websites (same hospital) that have had bad experiences which prompted me to write this “first post.” I was just trying to make people aware of what my experience was. When the rescue nurse arrived they literally threw her out of the room which she said she’d never experienced!

tuscanlifeedit

Yes, I've seen water ambulances, with sirens and all, in Venice. I'm shocked that the boat captain didn't call one, and even more shocked at the tour guide.

I thought that tour guides were at least equipped to interface with emergency care providers.

Please share the tour company, because I will make sure anyone I know avoids them.

To me, the hospital situation doesn't sound that abnormal, but the lack of follow through from the tour company is appalling.

debbizsc

The name of our insurance company was Travel Safe and they were terrific! We had no idea it included a travel nurse who was a godsend! She was with me literally from my hospital room to my bedroom at home...through numerous airports and planes. It was about $30,000 tor the trip home (which was all covered in addition to the hospital fees) and they had wheelchairs, etc. at every stop then a limo to bring me to our house.

They knew we were having trouble communicating even in describing medication I was on but made no attempt to find a translator. It was as if they didn’t like Americans. Only one doctor who spoke some English was nice and sympathetic.

massimop

I am sorry you were so upset by your experience. Are you OK now?

My first trip to Italy I also ended up in the hospital (for 14 days). The only English speaking staff (in Bologna) was a nurse who had studied in Canada. My husband and I used a translation service provided by our credit card company to communicate with doctors.

I was actually amused by the old-fashioned patriarchal "doctor making the rounds" routine in the Italian hospital. It's not just your husband who couldn't speak to the doctor. When I "dared" to asking the chief doctor some questions about my situation, the entire staff with him turned white with shock. The doctor was equally amused to have an American female patient pestering him with medical questions who actually didn't speak any Italian. Somehow, we communicated, and got along rather famously.

Because I had a very bad case of pneumonia, for which the basic treatment was bad rest & an intervenous drip of antibiotics, I was put into an enormous women's ward, mostly geriatric females. My husband and I were flabbergasted that he was expected to provide things like pajamas towels and eating utensils for my hospital stay, the kind of things a family might provide. Partly our shock was due to the lack of concern for "sterile".

We were adopted by other families in the ward, who shopped for us. To this day, it brings tears to me eyes that Italians who had troubles of their own would see our confusion, our need, and help us.

The treatment was excellent. Some years later, I moved to Italy. As a resident, I have needed to use the hospitals several times. Some are better than others, but I continue to be very pleased with the medical care I have received in Italy, both on an emergency basis and long term.

I have mixed feelings about the care my family has received in American hospitals.

massimop

Want to add:

We did not have trip insurance for that trip. The hospital did not charge us for anything except the antibiotics, which came to about 400 euros. However, we did lose money on non-refundable hotel bookings, changing transportation tickets, etc.

Since then, we have never traveled without trip insurance.

I think many people have a very rosy picture of what hospitals are like, which quickly gets upended if you or your loved ones must be in one, whether that it is the US or another country. Everybody loves the staff and hospital where their babies were born, but things get more contentious when it comes to adutls and even more so elderly patients. Then people are outraged -- whether it is the US or Europe or Aisa.

All that said, I once spent 10 days in a Japanese hospital where the nurses always bowed before and after giving me an injection. And they were so clean, I thought I might have died and gone to heaven. My room had sliding paper doors and the whole hospital was serenely quiet. I wish all hospitals everywhere could be like that.

historytraveler

I agree with tuscanlifedit that the boat captain and tour guide didn't do enough. I'm also surprised that the tour guide was not at least conversant in Italian. He/ she should've been aware of ambulance boats and called for one.

Having lived abroad,the situation in the hospital wouldn't have been too important. There is a U.S. consulate in Venice so surprised that you didn't try to contact them especially in regard to the language limitations. I certainly wouldn't expect the hospital staff to be English speaking. A very unfortunate experience for you so glad you are doing well.