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"Sweet are the uses of adversity"

MILIA ALI
IN the all-time favourite movie Roman Holiday, a journalist asks a princess who is touring Europe: "Which of the cities visited did Your Highness enjoy the most?" The young princess (played by Audrey Hepburn) responds: "Rome. Byall means, Rome..."
The sequence may be fictional, but in reality, too, no one can deny that Rome is one of the most magical cities in the world. With its undulating landscape, colossal ancient monuments, architecturally impressive fountains and quaint piazzas, Rome can charge even the most unimaginative mind.
As a matter of fact, Italy in its entirety offers an experience of joyful discovery. The home of geniuses like Da Vinci and Michaelangelo, Italy allows you to immerse yourself in the best of European art, culture and cuisine. However, my recent visit to Italy exposed a less endearing side of the country - one that I would never have discovered had it not been for a mishap.
My husband accidentally fell down the stairs in a hotel in Palermo, Sicily, and was evacuated to a public hospital for emergency medical help. This marked the beginning of excruciating waits in overcrowded and under-serviced facilities for X Rays, CT scans, EKG, and doctor consultations. The entire process of "initial investigations" took 12 hours, at the end of which we were advised that my husband had a broken hip and wrist both requiring surgery. After two days of back and forth consultations, the doctors decided that he only needed bed rest. We were then subjected to a series of traumatic experiences - inadequate physical facilities in the orthopedic ward, uneven nursing support, confusing signals from physicians, compounded by a language problem. Thanks to the exceptional support and effort of friends my husband was airevacuated to a well-equipped facility in Rome.
In case some of you are wondering where all this is leading, let me clarify that there is a purpose to the long personal narrative. Currently, health care is a raging topic in the United States. The Republican Party has orchestrated a government shut down using President Obama's Health Care Plan as a bargaining pawn in the budget discussions. In fact, Congress has blocked the funding for the president's health care reforms. While these reforms would not provide free health care to all citizens like in Italy, they would allow some bene- fits/options to those who are not covered by health insurance. In this backdrop the Italian experience becomes all the more relevant since it has succeeded in clarifying, in my mind, some issues on the pub-lic/private health care debate.
The quality of care we received in a public polyclinic in Italy might have been less than desirable. However, although we are foreigners we were not denied the benefits that everyone else received. A complete medical investigation, which would have cost thousands in the US, was provided to my husband free of charge. Despite the long waiting period, lines were maintained and patients seemed resigned to the fact that eventually everyone would be catered for. True, the infrastructure and nursing quality were unsatisfactory but the doctors seemed responsive and professional.
Surprisingly, I noticed a good-natured acceptance of the systemic inadequacies among the patients - a kind of stoicism that underwrites the overall success of the seemingly chaotic health care structure. In addition, there is an informal support network where caregivers of patients help each other to make the hospital experience less chai-lenging.
The American health care system may be more cutting-edge, efficient, and cushy but it is essentially an unequal arrangement. The quality of patient care is primarily driven by the benefits "sanctioned" by insurance companies. Most importantly, health care is still not the basic right of a I IS citizen, which it is for an Italian. The realisation that the Italian health care scheme is designed to provide average service for all, rather than the best for a few, has tempered my reservations about the system.
I end with an emotional anecdote. As my husband was being wheeled out of the polyclinic, I bid good bye to our ward mates in Palermo - the 22-year old aspiring soccer player who had snapped a tendon in his leg, the old man recovering from hip surgery and the motor biker who had crashed into a car, dislocating his shoulder. I felt a tinge of guilt - we were moving to a better facility, while these people would perhaps continue to suffer the discomfort of inadequate care. Surprisingly, all three kept smiling. I thought I detected a slight smirk on the face of the biker as if he was saying: "Don't worry, we, too, shall survive." I realised then, that the Italians are proud of their health care system. Although not optimally efficient - it still takes care of the entire population without discrimination. And, that means a lot to the common folks!
The writer is a renowned Rabindra Sangeet exponent and a former employee of the World Bank.