after my last, dutch medical experience a few months ago, i thought that i was finished and that would be the end of it all, but lucky for me i was in for a surprise. the pc said they would not trust my doctor's records from the us -- so i had no choice but to head to the ggd. the ggd is the local, we-do-it-all, medical walk-in clinic -- basically for people who need vaccines mainly or can't afford to go somewhere else. now i can say i have experienced the overall dutch medical tour.
i arrived early so as to not miss too much work, though i ended up waiting well over 4 hours. i came in for a polio booster, but in the netherlands it's a bit different -- there is no "polio booster," only dtp (diptheria, tetanus, and polio). they asked where i would be going and when i replied kiribati,i got the most shocked faces -- what's that? where's that? why are you leaving the netherlands? .... and on and on.. it was off to a confusing start as i explained in the us i had just received the tetanus booster, and therefore did not need to get it again, much less the diptheria vaccine. at first the woman was signing me up left and right for all kinds of vaccines as she said the us was killing their people by not using the correct, european way of vaccinations; plus in a place like kiribati i had better be ready for anything. after 10 minutes, i convinced her i would only be able to pay for the dtp, and the others would have to wait.
now when i went to send the information to pc, like the last results, they claimed they were not valid. that since it was in dutch they could not accept it... luckily i had met a doctor through another friend, and she was able to translate all the medical jargon for me. but really why so picky?
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