What she said and what I saw

"We have to send anyone with any upper-respiratory conditions there," she said when she refused me treatment at the urgent care for an ear blockage because I have asthma and allergies.

"Because there are so many pregnant women at this clinic," she said.  

In the 30 minutes I am there waiting, I see no pregnant women.  After 30 minutes, her superior comes to answer my question about why I have been allowed into their other clinics for physical therapy and orthotics appointments with the exact same answers to the screening questions for the past few months.  She glares at the lady who denied me service, and I sense that she would have let me in, but since the first lady said no, she can't contradict that.

I drive to the city half an hour away.  To "there."  The first person I see at the entrance is a pregnant woman. She is Black.  

Inside at the screening desk, I am required to take off my well-fitting, three-layer cotton mask and put on a uselessly loose, cheap, one-layer mask. There is no hand washing available before I put on my new mask. When I ask about it, I am told there is a small, enclosed, poorly ventilated bathroom I can touch a door to go into or a hand sanitizing dispenser I can touch. I'm told to proceed down a number of hallways.

Everyone I see, patients and staff, are people of color. A number of them are pregnant Black women.

When I find the correct desk, I am told the wait is 90 minutes, or I can schedule an appointment, drive home, shower, do a little bit of work in great discomfort, drive back, wait an unspecified amount of time, finally get treated, drive back home, shower, and finally focus on work. No appointments are available around my work meeting. The ones that are, they cannot guarantee I would actually be seen at those times.

I haven't slept. I think hard. I ask for a number to call and schedule, and I take it. Then I drive to the place I should've gone first. They don't even ask screening questions. After several hours, and three sets of exposures to whatever is floating around, I get home and wonder why they don't care about people with chronic upper respiratory problems being around the very real pregnant Black women in the city but do mind us being around the theoretical white pregnant women in the suburbs.

August 2020