Buy me $1 Worth of Booze!

Today I went into the COVID isolation unit with the head medic there. They ain’t playin’ around with PPE, man. It is literally head to toe, including dedicated slip on loafer shoes that get soaked in a sanitizer barrel before being reused, full-body suits a la Squid Game or  Outbreak, shoe covers, spraying every door handle as we go in or out before and after we touch it. 
There’s no air conditioning here and it’s about 85-90 degrees minimum all the time during 
the day. 

Today’s COVID numbers weren’t terrible. 3 COVID patients, one unlucky patient with both COVID and Tuberculosis, and one lady in alcohol withdrawal whose husband is one of the COVID positive patients. 

As we approached the building, I could hear a woman’s voice shouting in Burmese with the familiar timbre of alcohol withdrawal fervor. 

We entered the unit after donning our COVID sauna suits. The first problem was that the TB guy was lounging in bed next to the alcoholic lady’s bed. No mask on anyone. The medic had a long education session with that guy about the reason his actual bed was on the other side of the building and to please go back to his own bed. We escorted him back to his bed, where he squatted on the floor by the bed looking for ants to smoosh with his thumb. 

Right next to his bed happened to be a slight, almost gaunt lady who was shorter than me and was still shouting in Burmese— at a wall of blue plastic construction barrier. 

The medic spoke with her and it turned out that she was hankering for her alcohol so had walked up to this makeshift wall separating isolation from the normal inpatient unit,  tossed 30 Thai baht over the wall and was shouting for someone (anyone) to go buy her some alcohol with it. Unfortunately for her, the closest people were medical staff. Hahahaha
 
She got a lil dose of Valium. 





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