chinese hospital

since this story happened a few weeks ago, i think i can now write about it without it being a rant. =)  and you might find it interesting how you go about visiting a chinese hospital.  for one thing, they don't really have just plain old doctor's offices here, so if you need to go somewhere for any kind of medical care, you go to a hospital.  so imagine every person needing anything related to medical stuff going to a place like this.

so when i was sick with those stomach problems, i decided to try going to a chinese hospital because maybe they would give me medicine and it would be way cheaper than any international hospital where the doctors speak english.  i definitely went with a chinese friend, because otherwise i never would have even got to the right  building, much less known how to do any of the other things we had to do to actually get to the doctor, or been able to talk to the doctor or get the medicine.  anyway.

we got there in a taxi, and the place is huge.  there are buildings A, B, C, D, E, F, G at least, maybe more.  so somehow my friend knew which building to go to.  when we got inside, we had to get a little booklet and write my name and age and other information on it.  the doctor would write notes in this booklet.  i also had to buy a card that they encode with my information.  the card and the booklet can be used in the future to be swiped and written in so they know that the patient is the same person and connect the past visits together and all that.  so we got the card and the booklet.

then we went to a different counter, stood in a "line" and then gave the lady behind the counter the booklet so she could enter my information in the computer and connect it to the card.  she took about 5 minutes or more to change the typing on the computer to english letters and actually type my name painstakingly one letter at a time into the computer.  my friend told the lady which department of doctor we wanted to see, and the lady entered my name onto the list of people waiting to see that type of doctor.

then we had to find the proper location inside the building to see that type of doctor.  we went up stairs and down some hallways until we found the right giant lobby-ish waiting area with metal chairs.  on the wall was a tv screen projecting which patient was seeing which doctor at the time, and the number of the patient.  i had been given a receipt with my number on it (twenty-something).  when we got there, they had just started with numbers 1 and 2, so we had to wait for quite awhile.  there were 2-3 of the type of doctor i needed to see, so they went through the patients on the list one at a time.  when a doctor was available, they would display the patients' name on the screen (in characters of course) and read it aloud several times.  when they got to my name, they didn't even attempted to read it, but spelled it all out, first and last name, one letter at a time over the loudspeakers.  pretty funny, except that i wasn't feeling well, so i don't think i actually thought it was funny at the time.

then we went down a hallway where there were several closed doors, presumably with doctors behind them.  when a patient came out of one of the doors, we went in to see the doctor (the screen had told us which doctor to see, but only my friend (not me) knew how to tell which door was which doctor--as far as i remember, the whole wall and every door was just white with no writing....but then again, i was sick).  after describing my symptoms (my friend translated), the doctor basically told me my body was "out of balance" and proceeded to write down what medicine we should get from the pharmacy.  he didn't DO anything.  i know chinese people have a much different view of health and medicine and sickness than westerners, but because he didn't do anything (and probably also because i couldn't actually have a real conversation with the doctor), i felt like the whole thing was a waste of time.  also, i had no way to know what the medicine actually was and if there was any western equivalent whatsoever, because it was some chinese-style medicine.  i never got around to caring enough to get a chinese friend to look up for me what the medicine meant in english.  i'm not really a fan of taking medicine to begin with, not to mention medicine that i don't even know what it is.

so anyway, after that experience, i decided in the future i will not go to a chinese hospital (even all that only cost about 8 USD with no insurance being involved whatsoever) for these reasons:

• i want to be able to actually talk to the doctor myself and understand what he is saying
• i want to be able to ask the doctor questions, especially about any medication he is giving, and understand what the medication is
• i don't want to feel rushed like there are 50 other people waiting to see the doctor before the afternoon is over
• i don't want to wait in a metal chair in a giant lobby with names being called over a loudspeaker every minute
• i want to be able to know what doctor i'm seeing before i get there, not just be randomly assigned to someone
• i want the doctor to maybe actually do more than just talk to me

 the one that bothered me the most was not actually being able to talk to the doctor myself.  probably all the other things would not have mattered so much if i could have understood what the guy was saying and talked to him myself.  of course, if he still refused to do anything besides just tell me to talk medicine because my body was out of balance, then i'm sure i still would have been upset.  i did have really weird symptoms and i felt like his "out of balance" explanation could have explained anything....so what was the point of seeing him unless i was blindly going to take whatever medicine he told me to?  probably that is what most chinese people do.  maybe it's cultural, but i don't think i trust doctors *quite* that much.