Being Sick in a Foreign Country Sucks - And Qualms with Travel Medical Insurance

I ended up taking a couple of sick days this week from school because I have been fighting off a wicked flu. It started out with a sore throat and quickly shifted its way to my sinuses so I haven't been sleeping well at night and am constantly sneezing and gurggling (as Ross says) to try and breath.
Fortunately for me, I haven't been the only one who has gotten sick while we have been here. At least two of the Canadian students were so sick that they have missed over a week and a half of classes now because they were diagnosed with tonsilitis when they finally went into the American Clinic. And our roommate Laura told us yesturday when we met up with her at lunchtime after our first two classes, that only 3 of the 7 people in her class had made it to school that day.
Even our teachers can't seem to avoid being inflicted by all these bugs flying around - twice we have had substitues for our Conversation class, twice our Phonetics teacher has been away, and yesturday, when we got to our last class of the day after lunch, our Film teacher was away too and we were given no replacement teacher.
Maybe the weather has something to do with it. We had a really warmish weekend of 5-8 degree weather but now it has dipped back down to just below freezing - but regardless of the temperature it is always damp here. I think my lungs are just sick of all the smoke/pollution, the crazy amount of dust in our apartment, and the cold damp air they have to breathe in when I am outside. At anyrate I'm taking the weekend to hopefully recover and if not I may just have to make my way to the American Clinic as well.
It could always be a lot worse however - yesturday we found out that one of the students from Canada had broken his wrist early in the week. He has slipped on the ice and fell, causing it to break and apparently there is a bone fragment now which must be operated on to remove. The trouble is, apart from him breaking his first bone here in Russia, that even though he has travel insurance, for some reason his provider will not pay for his surgery to be performed in Russia. Now he has to fly all the way back to Canada before they will pay for it, or pay the American Clinic or the Euro Clinic here himself. He isn't even sure if his flight home to Canada will be covered or not, but his plan right now is to fly home, get over jet lag, have the surgery, recover for the required 5 days at least, and then come back to Russia, only to have to get over jet lag again before being able to return to classes. The flights alone not being able to be booked in advance will probably cost him at least $3000. Poor guy. I am grateful that I am just in bed with a headache, coughing and sneezing and not having to deal with medical insurance companies.
Note to self - ask him who his insurrance provider is and keep fingers crossed it isn't the same as ours. Then make sure not to get sick, and finally make sure not to use his company in the future. I would be pretty upset if I were him right now, having purchased extended travel medical insurrance only to find out that the provider refuses to pay for your treatment until you return home. Sometimes I think the subtext to the fine print on things like that can be pretty frustrating. In the long run, he has to put up with a whole lot more stress than if the silly insurance provider weren't so concerned with saving a few pennies and would just pay someone to do it here. Surely out of the dozen or so European/American Hospitals in St. Petersburg alone they could have found a decent surgeon to do it, so they can't claim its for his own safety to go back to Canada. And if not in St. Petersburg, why not just send him to Moscow, or Helsinki, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter so he wouldn't have to fly half way around the world again. What's the use of travel medical insurance if it only works in your home country? Sure they save themselves the money and the extra paperwork, but what exactly did this guy pay for?

~Leah