u/BoxLongjumping1067

The last week or so I’ve had a bad cough due to seasonal allergies triggering my asthma. For the most part I’ve been able to control my asthma with my medications. The last couple of days however the cough became so bad that today I was literally choking and gasping for air.

Went to the hospitals non emergency center accompanied by my sister, got a prescription for paracetamol since it turns out the issue is from a virus in combination with my asthma. Great. Unfortunately my town doesn’t have an emergency pharmacy so the plan was to take the bus from the hospital to the train station and then we’d have a 2hr journey to the next closest place. While we were at the train station my cough suddenly got worse and it was practically making me choke and I could hardly breathe, no amount of water was helping nor my inhaler. My sister called the ambulance and they took to me right away. I started stabilizing during the ride back to the hospital.

We get into the emergency area and I guess the head doctor was pretty pissed off. First there was some miscommunication and he thought they drove 40 minutes to the next town over to come get me when what was actually said was I was planning on going to the next town over to grab a connecting train to the town where the pharmacy is, as they asked me where I was going and they even fought him back on this. When he asked why I was here and I told him he condescendingly told me the ambulance isn’t for sore throats just see the doctor on Monday. I’m not gonna call emergency services or have someone call them for me if it’s something that I can handle on my own, but I wasn’t about to argue about it with him, I didn’t have the energy. They sent me to wait in the main waiting room out front and I wasn’t seen for like 4+ hours. Granted it’s a hospital, hospitals are understaffed and even when there’s hardly any patients here like today it can still be hectic, I get it, no complaints about that. But when I went to the front desk to just ask when it was possible I would be called back again since I still had an IV needle in my arm and my test results still weren’t given, she just shrugged off saying they’ll get to me when they get to me. My mother who lives 5 hours away wasn’t happy about this and her friend called the hospital and I was taken back about 20 minutes later. I’m finally on the way home assuming the very last bus decides to not turn in early.

A bit of a rant, sorry, but the whole ambulance thing has been bugging me and making me question whether I should’ve just tried waiting it out. But at the same time I feel like had we not called something terrible might’ve happened.

Since it might be asked in the comments: this took place in Thüringen and yes I’m a foreigner if it matters.