My young brother-in-law, Tolga, had a hernia operation yesterday in a large state-run hospital in Istanbul. When his wealthy aunt found out that she knew the director of said hospital, she phoned him up and asked him to make sure her nephew was dealt with by a good surgeon. At the last minute, therefore, the surgeons were switched and the hospital’s best practitioner was entrusted with the (albeit minor) op. Phew.
After the operation was concluded and the patient’s friends arrived to visit him, a male nurse forbade them entry, telling Tolga’s mother that only family were allowed in. She protested to no avail, but when she later went out to get something to eat, the nurse said, “You won’t come back empty-handed will you?” My mother-in-law, who but for remittances from my wife would have to scrape by on a tiny widow’s pension, took the nurse two packets of Marlboro (which cost the equivalent of a day’s worth of pension). In return, the nurse let Tolga’s friends in to see him and told my mother-in-law, “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.” Far from being outraged, my long-suffering mother-in-law was relieved that a couple of packets of fags were enough to buy the health-conscious nurse off.
