We have confirmed that the lady we spoke of in our last post, Horror Story: the Truth About BKC Moscow is, without a doubt, SUING BKC IH MOSCOW.

An advocate retained by this teacher filed a motion for the lawsuit at the Basmanniy district court of Moscow last Thursday, February 18, 2010.

The lawsuit is for illegal dismissal.

Many of us grumble about suing BKC Moscow. Some of us threaten on occasion to sue Lingua.ru, BKC's umbrella company. But to our knowledge, this is the first time that a teacher put her money where her mouth is and got herself a lawyer and took them to court.

BKC Moscow breaks many laws - we all know this. They dodge taxes, tear up contracts, take hours away from hourly teachers who need them, and give hours instead to teachers who are already working more than 30 hours a week. They might be breaking the law by not giving us free flats - it only appears that they give us free flats, when, in fact, our payslips show that this is deducted out of our real salaries.

We are not mentioning the name of the teacher because it is our policy to not name any teachers at all, even ones who have put themselves out there in terms of being disgruntled.

We wish this lady the best of luck with her lawsuit against BKC Moscow.

http://bkc-ih-moscow.blogspot.com/2010/02/bkc-teacher-sues-bkc-international.html
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Below source: http://thingsevewoulddo.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-we-have-here-is-failure-to.html

I used to work at BKC-IH Moscow in Russia. It didn't end well, so I sued them. Currently, I'm an EFL teacher in Seoul, Korea.

"What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate"

After three days of miserable hell, I am finally well enough to relay to you the events of the past few days. As a prelude, however, let it be kept in mind that I've had three days of no food, three days of high fever and have only begun the road to recovery in the past four hours. Likely, I, nor Russians, nor my employer will come off looking too good at the end.

The Beginning:

I woke up at about 1 pm on Wednesday, feeling terribly sick. My body and head ached, and my throat was glued shut. But oh, god -- it was only three hours till my classes started. And there was so much to be done. I dragged myself out of bed and to the bathroom. My steps were shaky. I wildly wondered if I could make it to the metro. No. There was no way. I would have to take a taxi to school. No. I can't do that. OK, then. I must call in sick.

I called the main office. One of the ladies asked me if she should call the doctor. "Yes, please," I said. I limped off to bed in a fog. Hours later, it was dark again. The front buzzer was going off. The doctor.

I led him into the kitchen. He asked me to explain my symptoms. I told him my throat was sore and that I was in extreme pain. I held my head and spread my hands over my body to emphasize this. I told him I thought it might be strep throat.

He didn't know what I meant. (In retrospect, I wish would have used Google translator for "strep" but in my defense, I didn't know this would be necessary).

I explained that a throat culture needed to be taken, and that it had to be analyzed (I mimed looking through a microscope). Finally (at this point, the doctor had done NOTHING, not even taken my temperature), he said that I had the flue and he wrote down a few things. He asked me if I had been taking anything. I told him ibuprofen. He told me I didn't need ibuprofen, or any other painkillers. He said that I needed only these three things (not a single one of them sounded like any type of antibiotic) and that I would feel better in three days. He apologized that he didn't speak English very well, and bid me farewell.

The Middle:

I went back into my bedroom, the awful smell of sweat and sickness overcoming me. I drank water and juice, and faded in and out of bizarre nightmares involving the English alphabet.

The next morning, I went to fulfill the prescription. I hobbled to the corner market, which has a pharmacy. The woman spoke a little English. She said they didn't have two of the three things the doctor had written down. "Can you give me something that is close," I asked. She said yes. As an afterthought, I said, "Do you have any antibiotics?" I had heard from my adult students that you don't need to have a prescription for antibiotics here in Russia. The pharmacist told me that this one had some antibiotics. Oh, okay. Good.

I went home, anticipating that I would feel better within a few hours.

But, no. Twelve hours later, I was still a shivering wreck of a person. I didn't know what to do. The doctor had not even examined me. He had not checked my lymph nodes, temperature, or anything. He had given my throat only a cursory glance. I began to have an idea that this doctor was a quack. I called a colleague asking for advice. I had been in miserable pain, at this point, for about 36 hours. At home, in the U.S., would I have allowed myself to reach this level of illness? Hell, no. I would have gone straight to the doctor, or, if I had no health insurance, straight to the acute care clinic and would have been given a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers.

So, I called the BKC Emergency Hotline.

The Point in the Story Where Things Get Very Fucked Up:

My employer has a 24 hour person on standby for emergencies. I called this number and reached one of the ladies who works in the office. I explained my predicament: I was still very sick and in a lot of pain. The doctor they had sent did not inspire faith. I needed medical attention.

She told me I had two options: she could arrange for an ambulance to come to me, or I could wait till the morning, and she could arrange for me to go to a clinic.

This is how much pain I was in: I opted for the ambulance. At this point, I needed to be out of pain.

Two EMTs arrived about 15 minutes later.

This was one of the most fucked-up situations I had ever been in.

First, one of the guys, a squirrelly little poindexter-looking fellow, spots me and says, loudly, "Passport!" Okay, not the best bedside manners, assholes. But OK, maybe this is SOP. Here it is.

They follow me into my room and they put down their big medical kits. They begin to look around my room. I look with them. They're examining my books and my stuff. They're laughing. They're laughing a lot. Why are they laughing? Are they laughing at me?

One guy asks me, "Russian?" "No, English. Ahngliski," I say, even though that should be obvious since they've just seen my passport.

I hand them a piece of paper I've printed off the Internet. It says, in Russian, "I am experiencing extreme pain in my body, and my throat is inflamed. I think it is strep throat - streptococcal pharyngitis. Please check my throat and lymph nodes. Thank you."

They take my temperature - but the whole time, they're giggling like schoolboys. What is so fucking funny? They examine my throat, but do not take a culture. They do not check my lymph glands. One man says, "Hospital." "Pah-angliski eta hospital?" I ask. Poindexter smirks and laughs rudely. He says, in Russian, "In Russian hospitals, they speak Russian." I am not getting a good feeling about this at all.

I begin to cry. I feel so helpless.

One of the guys says, "Computer." I say no. I hand him a Russian-English dictionary. "Nyet, nyet slovar!" he says. Fine. I open up my computer. It takes a long time because my laptop is cheap. I'm sitting on my bed, and that's when I see it - a camera phone in poindexter's hand. There're images coming from the other side. Holy shit, is he taking pictures of my bedroom?

Finally, I log on. I go to Google translator. One of them asks for a chair. He shouts loudly in my direction (in Russian) for a chair. I pretend I don't understand him. He goes off in the apartment. He doesn't come back with a chair. Several minutes pass. Apparently, this genius has somehow forgotten that he doesn't know how to type. I watch him spelling out a question word - it looks like "Where" - but at this point, my patience threshold has been reached. I pull out my cell phone and call the emergency number. I tell the woman that these two guys are here, and that it is not comfortable. She gets on the phone with them.

Many, many minutes pass while they talk. Finally, the emergency lady comes back on the line with me and says, "They want to know what city you are from, what town?"

"FUCK! FUCK!" I scream (and let me tell you, this was hard to do with a swollen throat.) I smell anti-foreigner. I smell racism. I smell the color of my skin. I smell two smelly Russians who apparently think this whole thing is hilarious. I go out into the hallway and fling open the doors. "Get out! Get out!" I scream at the two losers in my bedroom. Oddly enough, they don't appear to get it. I get on the mobile with the emergency lady. "I am not comfortable with them. I want them out of my apartment. Tell them to leave. I will go find my own doctor tomorrow."

I thrust the phone back at the guys. Several minutes later. the emergency woman comes back on the phone with me. "OK, the guys want to take you to the hospital. They say that you are very ill, and that you must go to the hospital with them."

"No, we've passed that point," I tell her. "I'm not going anywhere with them. I'm finding my own doctor, tomorrow."

"Okay, but why are you uncomfortable? Is it because they're guys?"

I am feeling out of control, a feeling I do not like. I don't have time to explain myself to this lady.

"I'm uncomfortable because I say I'm uncomfortable, and that's all you need to know!" I snap at her. "I am the foreigner, here, I am the foreigner, do you understand? Now I need them to leave this flat right now!" I do not wait for a response. I hand the phone back to the guys.

Finally, they leave. They make me sign a paper saying that I refused medical treatment.

The End:

My phone rings with what will be the first of three calls from my employer. Each is from a different person, and each person wants to know the following: What happened last night, and what do I plan to do today, since according to the EMTs, I have a serious infection that must be treated immediately?

I give each of the ladies long-winded explanations of what happened last night. I tell each of them that the doctor they sent was not a good doctor. I tell them that this doctor failed to diagnose an infection, and in fact, told me I didn't need any painkillers even though I assured him I was in great pain.

Finally, the last lady, my supervisor called. She began by saying, "BKC has responsibility to you. If a teacher becomes seriously ill, then BKC is liable."

"I couldn't agree with you more," I said. "But at this point, I have no faith that BKC can provide me with adequate health care. I have been failed twice so far - once with the doctor, and once with the rude - or shall we say "unrefined gentlemen?' emergency technicians. So although BKC is responsible, I can no longer put my health in the hands of a company that has proven to be unreliable, and I've got to get it taken care of myself."

She told me to call the main office after my doctor's appointment.

In Conclusion:

The doctors and staff at the European Health Clinic were a dream. I was given a Russian doctor named Maxim, fluent in English. I explained my symptoms. He agreed that it sounded like strep throat. He performed an examination. He took my temperature, blood pressure, peered into my throat and ears. I said, "Ahhh." He listened to my lungs. Finally, he took a throat culture. He mixed the swab with some drops of saline and put the mixture on a weird little tablet. "Should we place our bets?" he joked. I didn't get it.

He explained that it was a portable strep-throat analyzer. No need for microscopes -- we're in the 21st century. "It's like a pregnancy test - one stripe negative, two stripes positive," he said.

Two bright red, angry stripes gazed back at us.

The doctor told me that I should have the first round of antibiotics intravenously because my throat might not be able to handle the pills. Also, Ah, here's what I'm talking about! He tells me to follow him to the "emergency room."

I follow him in trepidation. When I think "ER" I think of the medical drama on NBC and my own experiences waiting in them.

Nope. It's just a tiny little two-bed room. They hook me up. They're good.

They're so good, in fact, that they notice I'm having an allergic reaction before I do.

The doctor says my name and holds up my arm so that I can see. "It's a reaction from the penicillin. I thought you said you were not allergic to penicillin?"

"I'm not allergic," I say, even as I now feel the reaction spike up through my fingers. The skin on my forearms has gotten all blotchy. "I've had penicillin many times before."

"Ooops," the doctor says and smiles.

They stop the IV and start another one. And, since I got a bad reaction from the first one, they need to do the second one twice. In between this, they give me a steroid injection and within the hour, my throat begins to loosen up.

Four hours later, I am sent on my way with a bag filled with pills. The doctor looks at me warmly as he explains that due to the allergic reaction, they've taken blood to check for mononucleosis. It is, he says, the only logical conclusion to be made out of the reaction. But the treatment is the same - he just wants to know for sure. He will call me with the blood results when they come in, he says.

The cost: 20,000 rubles. A shit-load of money. Money I don't "have," but technically do have. I called the main office, and they told me that I will be compensated based on the fees charged by the clinic they use.

I realize, as I walk out of the medical clinic, that I have taken some things for granted, and may, for the duration of my life, continue to take for granted. For starters, I assumed that an American or European style medical clinic was available in Moscow to English-speaking persons with money, and I was right.

Last night, those two retarded EMT guys held all the cards. They saw a foreigner and thought - well, who knows what they thought. But it probably wasn't good.

Today, at the health clinic, I was treated with care, and with great respect, and it was at a state-of-the art clinic, and they assumed that I had the money to pay for it. Which I of course did.

Can a common Moscovite take for granted the same things?

The thing is -- I know that I am being American (you will give me adequate health care, damn you! you will treat me with the respect i deserve! -- but this is not a third-world country. We are not in the bush. The things that the doctors had access to at this clinic - a strep analyzer, antibiotics, painkillers -- those are all things that that first doctor BKC sent to me should damn well have had access to, too.

http://thingsevewoulddo.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-we-have-here-is-failure-to.html