*‘Skadestuen’ The hospital emergency department, Nuuk
One of the first panicked thoughts that flashed through my mind after breaking my leg hiking in Greenland was, Oh God! What day is it today?! And a wave of relief washed over me as I realised it was a Monday. I was recalling a friend’s experience with her young son who broke his arm on a weekend. After rushing him to the emergency room, they were sent home with paracetamol and instructions to come back on Monday when the doctors would be back at work. A child. With a broken arm. Was sent home with paracetamol. So the loud CRACK followed by howls of pain as my son rolled on the floor clutching his mouth left me with a deep forboding. It was a Saturday.
Greenland is a small country and its health care services have pros and cons. One of the pros is that all medical care, including dental care, is free. Many still choose to have private medical insurance so they can more quickly access care, or seek specialist care. But for those who don’t or can’t, they can still receive free health care. Even in Denmark, dental care is not free. So it’s common that people moving away from Greenland will make one last dental appointment before they leave.
One of the cons, clearly, is that there are limited resources, particularly outside the main centres, and particularly on a weekend. But even in the capital, Nuuk, resources are limited. When we showed up to the emergency room with our son and his tooth in a vial of milk, the door was locked. After a while, a junior staff member let us in to the foyer and asked what was wrong. I explained that he had fallen face-first onto my closed laptop computer, the impact knocking out most of one of his front teeth. Her response was not encouraging. “Well there’s not much we can do about that.” But with some prompting, and our knowledge that the hospital has access to an on-call emergency dentist, she let us in to the waiting room. The doctor who saw him, although not especially knowledgeable, was at least prepared to call the dentist, seeing that he was in pain. So not much more than an hour after the accident, we were ushered into the empty dental surgery. It was just us and the on-call dentist. For the next hour she worked on him, taking x-rays, injecting his little mouth with a remarkably large needle, the whining, grinding sounds of her instruments leaving me rigid on the edge of my seat. Finally, we left with him back in one piece, his broken tooth glued in place and instructions to return in a week. I walked away amazed that this was possible, same-day, free of charge, and on a weekend in Greenland. I am very grateful. But I also think we got pretty lucky.
When I run my fingertips over the lid of my laptop, I can feel the scratchy indentation, the bite mark. Another small reminder of the ups and downs of living in Greenland.
