• Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    I showed up in Italy to work on a farm for a month.

    Ate the wrong thing one night, and my airways started closing up. Despite my Americanism coming through “dont call the ambulance, I can feel the benadryl kicking in”, my hosts called an ambulance.

    After a 45 minute ambulance ride, a 5 hour hospital stay including chest x ray, monitoring, and fluids, I was trying to pay up. The doctor lady just laughed at me as a I flashed my debit card. They sent me on my way with some albuterol for $0.

    We really do everything we can to enrich health execs here in America. Crazy to think about the mental benefits of knowing you live in a society that at least has the capacity to get you through a medical emergency without bankrupting you.