My American guest went down with a cough he could not shift and, after a week of protesting that he couldn’t be ill because he was fully vaccinated for everything, he asked me to take him to a doctor.
This was an even more complicated request than his desire to call Ubers, and so we set off in my car to drive around the wilds of West Cork in search of medical assistance.
I began by driving to the nearest town, and I led him into the A&E department of a hospital where I laid it on thick to the receptionist about him being an American tourist visiting the land of his ancestors, and I gave his Irish surname.
She made a face and said perhaps they could see him, and she invited us to take a seat beneath some posters about measles and strokes and one about a mystery virus that was going to make you very ill, but no name was given.
A few minutes later a nurse in a mask pulled up almost over her eyes stood in front of us and demanded to know what was wrong with my badly coughing American.
As he coughed and spluttered and struggled to speak, I explained he had a cough. ‘We can’t see someone just because they’ve got a cough,’ she said. And she walked us back to the hospital doors and pointed us in the direction of ‘the primary care centre’.
He was too weak to walk so I drove round the side of the building, and we walked into this pristine, newly decorated wing.
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