Settled at last

In my previous posting, I mentioned about having to go to the hospital the next morning (that’s yesterday morning) to see the doctor to arrange for the PLHIV’s referral letters to enable him to change his appointments to another state. His friends were willing to send him in their car so I didn’t have to worry about arranging for transportation.

There was no problem for me to get a place for him at a shelter home up north, but we couldn’t simply transfer him just like that. We’d need to get all the referral letters so that the caretaker at the shelter home can continue to bring him for his hospital appointments.

I made plans to meet up with his friends (who came all the way from up north) at 8 am yesterday so we could make the necessary arrangements with the doctor. But at 3.45 am while I was fast asleep, a call came in from my cousin saying that my aunt had just passed away.

Between voluntary work and family, of course family comes first. So I had to cancel my earlier plan. At about 6.30 am, I sent a text message to the PLHIV’s friend, telling him about my emergency and that I could not go to the hospital to meet them. However I told them to try meet the doctor, explain the situation and try to arrange and get their friend discharged and appointments transferred.

But when I texted them last night asking if they managed to settle the problem, I was told they hadn’t done a thing as they weren’t sure how to go about. They had gone back to their place up north. So I told them I’d try to settle things today.

I had already made arrangements to send my car for servicing this morning, so I called a fellow volunteer to ask if he could help. Coincidentally he was planning to go to the hospital this morning, so he promised to get things done.

So yes, this morning while I was waiting for my car to be serviced, my colleague made arrangements at the hospital while I made a few calls here and there, particularly to the lady in charge of the shelter home where we intend to send this guy. By about 12 noon or so, the friends of the PLHIV called, telling me they were already on their way to Ipoh to fetch this guy and send him to the shelter home. They called to ask if things could be settled today.

I immediately called my colleague and was told that the people at the ward were already planning to send this guy to a district hospital which could accommodate cases like this one. However the place is rather far and it will be difficult for his friends to visit him. The doctor told my colleague that if we need to make any other arrangements we’d need to do so at the district hospital where this guy was supposed to be sent.

Duh! Why make matters complicated? They needed him out of the ward anyway, why not transfer him direct to the shelter home instead of having to be transferred to the district hospital first?

I’m not sure what he mentioned to the doctor earlier, but this time I told my colleague to see the doctor and explain that we already have a shelter home for him and that a few friends are already on the way to send him there. We just needed them to give us the official discharge letter and the referral letters to enable his appointments to be transferred to the hospital nearer to the shelter home.

And yes, finally we managed to get what we needed. Of course the friends had to wait for while for all the documents to be ready, but they did manage to make that trip back north today without having to wait for tomorrow.

In fact the friend called me up at 8 pm to ask for directions to the shelter home (hmmm… wrong person to ask, I’ve never been there either!) as they had already reached the town but couldn’t find the place. They tried calling the number I gave them (the hand phone number of the lady in charge) but there was no answer. So I gave them the shelter home’s office number.

After a while I texted them to ask if they managed to find the place.

The reply came… “Trim kcih dah jumpe dah,,, kmi ada kt cnie”.

Alhamdulillah. Problem settled.