Free April 3: The Middle of Nowhere by Mackey Chandler Page B

doctor I can wake up. There are a number of people trained in Emergency Medicine I can call on and residents who have said they would respond in an extreme emergency trained as nurses or military medics. It's possible to overwhelm local medical facilities anywhere," he asserted.
    "That sounded more critical than I intended it to. It was a serious question. I am looking at living here so it concerned me."
    "You have the same level of medical care here you'd expect in a small town in the USNA or Europe. If you need very specialized surgery you have to go down to a large metro area just like if you lived in a very small town in Idaho. There are places in large cities that have better trauma centers. But really good trauma centers are the result of areas where violence is common. Living close enough to one to be taken there is often riskier than living further away and having less chance of needing it."
    "Then your crime level is very low here?" Gunny asked.
    "I do not believe we have treated anyone in the last year injured as a result of crime."
    "How about that guy in your cooler with a knife stuck in his back and the three rounds I put in his chest?"
    "I don't count war and political assassination as crime, but believe me, he was well past any possible treatment when we got him here. That's a pattern I am seeing. Such violence tends to produce dead bodies and little treatable injury. Even when we had fighting on station back in the war there were only six wounded I am aware of needing treatment."
    "Ask Jon if you want," April suggested. "I don't know if he keeps records of minor problems, like if somebody is drunk and disorderly and he escorts them home. He has not presented what you'd consider a felony to the Home Assembly since the war. He has the authority from the company to expel troublemakers who are just working here on temporary contracts."
    "Interesting. I'm used to more crime even inside the sheltered environment of a base."
    "We are a small community. A lot of crime like theft is harder to do here than down in an Earth town. You can't take your loot and drive to a town a little bit away to sell it," Lee said.
    "I've seen you don't have big apartments full of status symbols. And some things, like a video screen, everybody seems to have one of. There aren't any 'have nots' to steal out of envy."
    "How is the clinic funded?" Gunny wondered, looking around at an abundance of equipment. "Can three thousand people generate enough income to make it viable?"
    "Mitsubishi carries most of the expense because they need it for the construction workers. The voting citizens agreed to kick in eight hundred dollars each as a base fund."
    "A month?" Gunny interrupted.
    "No, annually. That all covers cubic, power and some of our upkeep on equipment. We are charging three-hundred-forty dollars an hour for myself and the other doctor. And we are the only pharmacy for now so we make a little on drugs."
    "I assume my USNA medical card is no good here?"
    "No, just as you could not use on Earth in a foreign country we would not be reimbursed if we offered treatment on it. However we have a policy of no tiered prices. Everybody pays the same and we will try to quote as accurately as possible what elective services will cost. Did you want an estimate on some service?" He looked funny at April. "Do you need privacy?" he added.
    "No, April is my employer at the moment. She actually urged me to come along because she intended to see you for the same reason. We are concerned we may be suffering from a degree of PTS. We, well, we've had a lot of people shooting at us lately. It's not paranoia because they really are," he emphasized.
    "I'm neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, but there are characteristic patterns of brain activity for which we can look with a standard test. If they are evident to a lesser degree, there are several drugs that can offer some relief. If there is a really severe problem then there are stronger drugs and behavior