Healthcare and Corruption

No I am not commenting on the healthcare bill passed in the States (see, I made a funny!) But in all seriousness today I got the pleasure of experiencing healthcare in the DR. I haven't been feeling well these past few weeks and I think things are getting worse, so I figured I would play it safe and just get things checked out.

True conversation between me and our Director of the Internship (not her official title):

To her:
"I will let you know how it goes. I could end up with cancer, the flu, and HIV from a ten minute checkup"

To me:
"Ha ha. Well don't let them stick you with anything."

Just using that to preface my visit and to help explain my feelings upon entering the clinic. Well while it wasn't a bunch of doctors running around trying to inject people with vaccines and drugs and anti-inflammatories, lets just say that the doctor was certainly a little bit overractive with me. He thinks my ear ache is due to stress (not surprised knowing my body) but he then prescriped an amped up tylenol and then said I should get an ani-inflammatory shot. Remembering the wise words of my liason down here, I stopped them then and there.

And then, as we got back in the car, my host brother and I noticed something stuck between the windshield and the windshield wiper. David had gotten a ticket for parking in a no-parking zone (for which there were no signs or indicators that it was indeed a no parking zone). He now owes the parking meter company 300 pesos, of which he defiantely told me he was not going to pay. Sort of amused thinking he was joking, it took me a few seconds to realize that he wasn't. David is not going to pay his ticket. Why?

Because a few years ago the mayor of Santiago announced that in order to raise needed funds for the city, parking meeters were going to be installed in the central of the city. However, the reality is that the mayor set up a private company to enforce the laws and so any money collected from parking fines or meeters doesn't head into the government's funds but rather into a nice private account owned by, you guessed it, the mayor.

Corruption up to the wah zoo. Be happy rule of law exists in our country. And be happy you don't have drug happy doctors trying to get you to take pills left and right. Or do we?