Santa Ana / Healthcare of El Salvador

Santa Ana / The 'Healthcare' of El Salvador

An edited version of this post can be found on STEEMIT: Upvote me to support my travels for free!

I recommend anyone who's on this page to find Santa Ana travel tips to keep on browsing. I would have loved to share my positive tourist experiences with you, but life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned.

I didn't have a happy end in El Salvador. My stay in Santa Ana was one dark, endless tunnel that slapped me in the face with reality. The reality of sickness, suffering, ignorance, corruption, fear, neglection of social care, intolerance towards homosexuals, extortion and murder.

It started all well. After a long search I tracked down my host Hernan (pseudonym) who I met via Couchsurfing. Instead of the media-stereotype tattooed gang member my host appeared to be a - tadaaa - gay hairdresser. After presenting my private room and refreshing me with some cold drinks, I could take place in the barbers' chair. I mentioned what travelling did to my hair and showed my dried out bird nest... "Say no more." Before I knew it I was hanging with my head in a sink, Hernan scrubbing my hair full of pastas and serums.

Like a true artist he dribbled around me, making some magic happen with his straightener, hairdryer and scissors. All the while he told me about his boyfriend with whom he had a relationship for three years (a gorgeous young boy being part of his group of friends), but no one knew. Homosexuality is 'not done' in El Salvador, you could lose everything: your job, your friends, your family, respect... Half an hour later another woman stood up. I've never looked so well-maintained in 1,5 years of travelling, I kind of got used to the flipflop-no-make-up-wild-coupe look. Well, there's a reason he is a national hairdressing guru, giving classes country-wide.

That night he invited me over to have dinner and drinks with his friends. That night it went wrong.

Around midnight I started throwing up. Not just once, but about 20 times. On top of that the toilet was my best bud. When my body was completely empty I started throwing up blood. I had a high fever and saw colors that were not there. I lay down in bed where the host of the party wanted to take care of me. He tried to do that in a very creepy way. He kept on touching me... my head, my hair, stroking my body. I had no strength to scream or push the perv away and he wouldn't leave. I kept on asking for help and to see Hernan, but like everyone else, he was too drunk to do anything.

I passed out and when I woke up I thought I was alone. After a while I heard breathing. The host of the party was still in the room, sitting at the end of the bed on a chair watching me. I knew I had to get away, I didn't feel safe. It was 5am and finally everyone was done partying, but Hernan was too hammered to talk. I got offered a ride back by the girlfriend of someone's friend. I explained to her how I felt and that I needed to go to a hospital or first aid (I was still throwing up and running to the bathroom every 10 minutes). She promised me she would take me, but she lied. They brought us to Hernan's home and laughed about my request: They said I was drunk and needed to sleep. I can't describe how frustrating it feels knowing that I was the only one that hadn't been excessively drinking. I could cry, but I had no choice... I can't walk alone on the streets of El Salvador at night.

The day later was the proof of how wrong the girl was. I could hardly move and slept all the time, simply passing out. Every half an hour I woke up to puke or defecate out the water I just drank. Yes, I didn't have anything in my body anymore, so when I drank water my body got rid of it within 2 minutes. I was dried out, reaching a level of thirst I never experienced before. I tried to eat, but I couldn't. The pains in my belly were so intense I screamed.

I wanted to inform friends or family but Hernan's house had no internet and he was still passed out in his drunk delirium. With the little energy I had I searched for his keys and left to find a cab to the hospital… there were none. I walked like a drunk person, holding on to the walls, but I couldn’t get further than 1 street so I returned. Once back, Hernan left, locking me up in the house for the rest of the day, being paranoid about me opening the door for anyone. He would do the locking-up-thing for many days to follow, basically keeping me a prisoner in his own house.

What I didn't know was that he was fighting a war of his own…

The next day again I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep. Hernan had repeated the previous night so it was impossible to wake him up. I stole his keys out of his pocket and went on a mission: reach the hospital, however long it would take. I had to be treated. I stumbled, couldn't talk, hit my head against things and had black-outs. No one helped, people just stared at me. They already stare at me when I'm just normally walking, there are no foreigners here, imagine how much they gaped at me right now. After what seemed an eternity I arrived at the hospital, but as it's Sunday they wouldn't let me in. I couldn't even reply to that, no breath or saliva left. I had to walk to the emergency help, the other side of the building. That cost me more than half an hour.

Once there a doctor asked me some questions in Spanish and filled in some paperwork. While he was doing that I looked around me. Is that a hospital? It looked like a dump. Crumbling walls, dirt everywhere, nothing like the sterile environment back home. He seemed to be helpful, but led me to a waiting "room" where I had to sit and wait for help... With the focus on WAIT, help never came. The doctors went out for lunch or something and didn’t seem to care that there were people suffering out there.

There were people with tuberculosis attacks and passing out on the floor, people coughing up blood in the bins, delirious people screaming hysterically and hitting themselves as psychiatric patients are sent to normal hospitals as well… but there was no one. Dead bodies were carried around in the corridor. I still had severe diarrhea, but the toilet had no water and no toilet paper. I asked at reception (holding on to the counter to not fall down), but they said I should go out to a shop and buy it myself. This is the health care in El Salvador. A guy who was waiting to be attended as well went out to buy it for me, a little bit of light in the darkness: Finally I could take a shit, apparently too much to ask. There was no running water to wash my hands, I wonder where or if the doctors even do that.

I kept on waiting, in a state in which simply sitting down is a challenge, throwing up in a plastic bag in my lap. After 3 hours finally a doctor came back. Slowly he started attending people. After 1 hour he was still helping the first one, more stamping paperwork than actually doing something. There were 8 people before me. I went to the reception desk and asked if that's their definition of "emergency care". They shrugged their shoulders to sum up the entire attitude in this hospital: No one cares.

I was even more exhausted after all this, but decided to do something the local people can’t do: pay for a private hospital. I dragged myself out until I encountered something looking like a private clinic. Finally, someone talked to me. Now I must say my Spanish is quite ok, but all these medical terms are not part of my vocabulary and also the shattered state of my brain didn’t facilitate the process. I’m not blaming myself though: not one educated doctor could speak the tiniest bit of English (which is also not my native language) nor copy my last name from my passport lying right in front of them, so you can estimate how reliable medical university degrees are here. I managed to explain it somehow though and before I knew it I was having a needle in my arm for a blood test and filling up little "boxes” in the bathroom. I got taken to another room where I received a bunch of (very painful) injections. After that I passed out for two hours with all those cables in my body. Once conscious I got presented the monster bill together with my results:

Intoxication by a bacterial infection, severe food poisoning, advanced dehydration problems and something in Spanish about some substances in my blood being low, but no one could translate it for me.

So the girl who didn't want to bring me to the hospital was in fact the direct reason of my sickness: she prepared the food that intoxicated me. I picked up my medication and started walking the road to better health.

That’s how it goes here: If you have money, your life counts. If you don't, you can drop dead. That's at least what those people in the public hospital did. F*ck the poor. Just let them work for $1 an hour and ask their 3-month salary for medication, sounds like a fair business. The beautiful harvest of capitalism, the cancer of humanity.

The days that followed the image in the mirror changed: The circles under my eyes almost touched the ground, my face looked like one of those anorexic models in the magazines and my bones were sticking out of my hips. My nose started itching and I had severe sneeze attacks, as my dog allergy now also came to the surface. Because screw me. Why not give it all at the same time? I decided to sadly sit out my time until I had the strength to travel again.

Here

Entertained by my fever hallucinations that kept on coming back and my best friends suero (rehydration liquid), loperamide (anti-diarrhea) and pediarol (curing my intestines). Eating four spoons of plain rice every day, more was impossible. As I didn’t seem to get better I decided to escape the country sick anyway. I had enough. I still needed to visit the Santa Elena volcano, Ruta de Flores and Parque Nacional El Imposible, but I didn't care anymore.

I wasn't the only one who escaped. Someone else did for real. The last night my host Hernan came into my room. "Stephanie we need to talk... Conoces la palabra extorción?" Extortion, yes I know that word, that's what the gangs of San Salvador do to get funds: force innocent citizens to pay outrageous amounts of money in exchange for their life.

"Mira, they came a year ago and I had to pay them $40.000... ($40,000!!!) Two times this week when you were sleeping they came back, fully armed. They want even more this time. This is money I don't have. I'm going to Guatemala with you, they will kill me here, very soon."

And so it went... In the darkness of the early morning, without telling anyone, he left his homeland, friends, partner, dog, salon, house and family to never return. Against his will and carrying only one bag. And all of a sudden I had no problems anymore.

Until today I’m still in touch with Hernan. He lives in another country and uses another name. He can never go back to Santa Ana.

Photo sources: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

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