Savage dog attack! It's lucky we're in Turkey...

My apologies to those who have, unbelievably, been waiting for us to post something, our frustration with STILL being in Finike awaiting our new doors and covers has been a bit mind-numbing. 

However, as our fellow "captives" agree, it's not that bad waiting sitting on a yacht in the Med. 

Or, at least close to the Med. It's just out there, outside the marina!!

Mike has managed to keep our boredom away with boat jobs and other shenanigans. Last week, persistently ignoring my comments that not all dogs want to be his friend, he came across a marina dog coming out of the chandlery as he went in. "Nice puppy" he cooed and presented the back of his hand, then went in for the pat.  Unfortunately the nice puppy was an adult dog who didn't think this was an adequate introduction nor the way to commence a meaningful relationship.

So she bit the extended hand of friendship.

This is the savage creature, clearly a rabies risk....

A few minutes later Mike appeared back at the boat, blood running down his raised arm, and stated that perhaps we would have need of the first aid kit I had filled with supplies only the day before. 

Of course my first concern was for the interior of the boat - move your arm and stop dripping blood on the boat!!   Subsequent kinder enquiries revealed the cause of the bloody wound. We looked at each other, and I asked, does this mean treatment for rabies is required?  Yup.

Finike Hospital 

Luckily the hospital is only a 15 minute walk away. After the initial high-level home treatment of betadine and a bandaid, off we went, clutching our new Ikamet residency ID cards.

Now this is the real point of this post - the level of Turkish health care, which we had already heard good things about. We presented ourselves at the emergency foyer, and after a brief triage - name, bite, when? -  was instructed to pay a fee first. This turned out to the cost of the consultation, and came to roughly $10.  Then we were directed through some doors for treatment, where we waited for few minutes for assistance at a busy desk after passing over the triage paperwork. Having established that the bite was about 20 minutes ago, a lovely lass (in reality a professional health care provider) who spoke great English came to help. 

Just to paint a picture - This desk was approximately 5 meters long accomodating about 5 staff, and had no protective screens or barriers, no signs stating bad behaviour would not be tolerated, and the area was basically open to anyone.  Because these emergency staff do not have to cope with drug or alcohol affected patients, so are much, much safer than staff at western hospitals.

The emergency staff asked is if we could wait about 15 minutes as they were busy with patients from a bad motor vehicle accident. Um... sure, thats fine..? 

So we went out to wait. A small gathering of mostly middle aged people had started to gather outside the hospital. After a while we returned to the desk. Lots of phone calls and discussion going on. "Very sorry" says lovely lass, would you mind waiting about 30 minutes more?   Ohh the inconvenience, we didn't think.

Outside the entrance we had a surprisingly good cuppa tea and watched as the crowd outside grew. A small middle-aged man starting pacing, yelling and wailing into his phone, other people tried to placate him, but he was in a horrible world of his own. Over time we surmised  that these people were relatives of the accident victims.

Thirty minutes passed and once again we went to the desk. This time, profuse apologies, could we wait a little bit more, as the doctors were organising transport to another hospital for one of the serious patients, as they had too many to treat. 

Can you imagine this in Australia? Mike had a wound that could be covered by a bandaid, and they were incredibly apologetic about us having to wait! 

Trying to keep out of the way we observed the serious patient transferred to an ambulance, the stretcher making it's way through the throng of concerned friends and family, the wailing man distraught to see his son so ill. 

So feeling a little bit insignificant we returned to the desk, where the staff were a little more relaxed. Glad to say we provided some light relief when we provided the information that it was a marina dog who caused all this drama - for some reason they laughed at this, although whether it was because we are idiots to worry, or that this is a common thing, we don't know.

Mike received his first of three injections, a script for antibiotics and some cream, and a card with dates to return for the additional jabs. Wouldn't you know it, the last one is 29th April, weeks away.... But the total cost of all this will come to less than $40. So far Mike has only limited frothing at the mouth or howling at the moon.

And the savage beast? She belongs to Faik who ownes the chandlery, and has had her shots. Apparently this is unlike her. Indeed I saw her asleep in his office yesterday, head resting on the feet of another customer. But Mike will be keeping a wide berth from now on. Pun intended.