Kate Simpson tells a tale of typhoid and vending machines

I have a friendly competition going with a friend of mine over who can acquire the most hospital visits. Having achieved a week in hospital for myself with a broken ankle, I have the sense not to require these visits for personal injuries, and so, not being involved in the medical profession, I must rely on friends' and acquaintances' accidents and illnesses. Up until recently my friend and I were more or less neck and neck, with me registering two climbing accidents (accident and emergency departments in Sheffield and Carlisle), an exploded appendix (Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary), two broken ankles (separate cases, both Newcastle General) and an unknown drunk with a split head (Chester, accident and emergency department). These experiences have given me some strange skills, ranging from an ability to understand desk clerks through three inches of reinforced plastic, to an appreciation of just how many shapes and sizes urine sample pots come in, and, most importantly, an ability to work hospital vending machines.

Recently, however, I moved my hospital experiences to another level and, indeed, another continent, with a week long visit to the Clinica Montifuri, Lima, Peru, with a case of typhoid, although obviously not my own. Previously I had thought that typhoid was for weak women in bad costume dramas from the 1850s and that, once inoculated, one was immune. I stand corrected on both counts. The person concerned was in fact a student in my care at the time, and the onset was frighteningly fast. From unquestionable good health when she went to bed she awoke some four hours later with severe diarrhoea and vomiting. I was finally woken at 7 00 am to be asked whether it was "significant" that the aforementioned student had been vomiting blood for three hours. Somehow this seemed significant, very significant, and my latest hospital encounter began. Finding, getting to, and checking into a hospital took several taxis, hours, and much vomiting, convulsions (typhoid case), and disposal of many dollars (me). Oh for the NHS, where arrival would have been a simple case of two receptionists, one nurse, one efficiency manager, two medical students, and a lost trainee porter.

The Clinica Montifuri was like no other hospital I had experienced. A room with a "garden view" was four storeys up and looked directly, and only, at a brick wall. The nurses spoke only Spanish and would regularly disintegrate into giggles and rush off; a large, and particularly graphic cross had to be removed from the wall; pillows and a fan "borrowed" from another room; and the doctor proposed to me on behalf of his son (whom I had never met). Luckily, the supply of drugs was never ending and liberally administered, and the staff, although completely unaware of any concept of time--a doctor's round at 10 00 am meant any time after midday, a promise that nurses would refill the drip in half an hour generally translated as two hours later--were friendly and deeply amused by anything we did. Indeed, there was a never ending stream of staff in to visit, on pretexts ranging from spurious "tests" to sweeping the floor, emptying an empty bin, and taking a dinner order--whatever food my friend requested, jelly always arrived. It became obvious that we were the biggest excitement in the hospital, and every nurse, cleaner, cashier, and porter was bent on getting a view of this strange circus.

Over the next week my Spanish improved and my vocabulary expanded, with phrases such as "my friend's drip has finished", "is it normal for her to be that colour?," "do all patients live solely on jelly?" and "well, could she possible have a different flavoured jelly next time?"entering day to day conversation, and it did not require particularly good Spanish to understand when the nurse wanted to administer a suppository. Although my Spanish advanced, my understanding of the vending machine remained at only a very basic level, restricting me to one slot and one combination of letters and numbers. Even when I did boldly try an alternative--and the cogs kicked in, and the spiral bar began to turn--the same product would inevitably plop out. For a week I lived on a diet of Chocomans, an insubstantial chocolate covered sponge; by the end of the week I had eaten the machine's entire supply. Luckily, I was saved from having to move on to hospital jelly as the staff seemed to lose interest in us, my friend's drip was disconnected, and we were dispatched back onto the street with a large bag of drugs.

So, for the time being, that is my most recent hospital experience, and I hope that it will be my last. Indeed, from now on if it can't be solved with a sticking plaster, a blob of TCP, and half an aspirin I'm not getting involved. Somehow I think a lot of friends will be pleased to hear that.