Pitufa.at

We arrived last week in Tahiti and started working on a packed schedule: catching up with a workload that requires internet, then we had a rental car for a day to get our yearly gigantic provisioning done and right in the middle of all that rushing around Christian had an accident–not out in the big city, but at home…

Our swimming ladder folds up and we’ve always pointed out to visitors that they should never, ever get their fingers between the fixed bit and the folding tube that swings down. We’ve used it for 10 years without an incident, but on Thursday Christian somehow got his index finger into the gap and the tip was pinched off.

He got out of the water with the severed tip, friends brought ice, we tried to stop the bleeding, called a taxi and rushed off to the ER of the big hospital in town (Taaone Hospital).
After 3 hours of waiting we were sent home again–the finger needed surgery and all ER surgeons were busy with more serious injuries.

We were told to come back the next day, Christian was prepared for surgery in the morning, had to wait all day and then we were again sent home with the same argument: no surgeon available.

On Saturday(!) the finger was finally fixed, they had to round off the cracked bone of the tip, pull up the skin and sew it over the tip. Ouch. Last night wasn’t fun despite lots of painkillers, but today Christian’s already feeling a bit better.

Up to now we were praising the medical services in Tahiti where specialists are readily available who work with European standards, but lower prices and without long waiting times.
This time we got really disappointed…