The male nurse or paramedic (I don't know), entered the ambulance with me in the back, while his colleague drove. His only concern, inside the ambulance, was to fill up some papers about me. So much that he forgot to correctly close the door. That I realized only when, all of a sudden, when the ambulance made a fast turn, the man flew out.

I was still dizzy from the fainting and took me quite a few seconds before my brain understood that the man had been thrown out of the ambulance. The driver, with the sirens on, did not notice. I went to the little window between the back and the front of the ambulance and screamed for him to stop, that his colleague had somehow flown out. The poor man was lying in the asphalt, all hurt. His luck was that, because of the sirens, the cars outside were not running, so they did not go over him.

So, in the end, I was the one who had to take care of the nurse/paramedic in the back of the ambulance, while we went towards the hospital.

When we arrived, probably because the driver somehow informed what happened, a bunch of nurses came running to help take their colleague up to the doctor's room. As if in a scene from some comedy, I was forgotten inside the ambulance.

So I went upstairs by myself, looking for a doctor who could help me... As soon as I got upstairs, a nurse spotted me speaking English on the phone and, without asking who I was, why I was there, screamed at me, as if I was her son, that I should turn off the phone, sit and wait for my turn. I tried to answer, but she entered a room and slammed the door.

A few minutes later she showed up and again talked to me as if I were a bad child - "I already told you to sit down, why are you walking around the corridor?", to which I replied "are you my mother or do I know you at all?" She stared at me and had no reaction, as if she did not understand why I asked such a question. So I added "because as far as I am concerned, you work for me, not me for you". Her answer was "if you want to be attended you better shut up", and left.

Almost an hour later she came out again and let me in. The lady doctor immediately informed me, even before I opened my mouth, that as a foreigner I would have to pay for her care and for the heart test she would make on me (to see if I had not had a small heart attack). I asked how much and she, instead of a number, said "a lot".

She then asked what happened and I described it. I then said that I do not mind paying, if necessary, but that I have an international insurance. She said "we do not accept those. Do you have any Czech one?" I answered that it is an international type of insurance that covers me anywhere in Europe. "Then go to Europe, 'broučku'...[my dear]"

I had had enough of that kind of treatment I know so well from public servants and cheap pubs, so I said I was not gonna waste my time, especially because I could not trust a doctor who acted like her and that - and I am not exaggerating - the bad smell from sweat and not-so-clean-clothes from both of them was so intense that I would faint again. The doctor then wanted me to sign a paper that I myself was refusing treatment. The level of kafkianism got so high that I ignored her and left. The nurse still screamed at the corridor "go home if you want treatment for free". Without looking back, I just replied "but HERE is my home" (in Czech Republic, for the past 11 years).

Many friends wanted me to denounce the doctor or make some other kind of scandal. But the following day I was fired, so the whole episode fell to the back of my mind and priorities.

After consulting a lawyer, I was informed of how it would be almost impossible to prove anything - it would be my word against theirs - and that I should count with the fact that judges, like nurses or waiters, are from the same small cultural lake, so I risked they would "understand" the ladies more than me.

Because this kind of behavior and view of foreigners "u nas" , in this country, is not the exception, but the rule, I figured it would indeed be a waste of time and money, for I would punish only one person, while the anomaly would continue everywhere else.

In that sense, an article is better than a court case, because at least some people will think about whether they are also part of that species...