So at the beginning of the week, whilst I was at the gym I might add, my trainers managed tk simultaneously create and burst a blister on my heel. For some reason this blister then went a bit nasty and I decided I should introduce myself to the Chinese medical system.
Thankfully my school mentor, as well as the school driver (not that he had any choice in the matter) were willing to whisk me off to the doctor to see about my foot. Up until now I didn't a clue where my nearest doctor/hospital was, despite the facts there are LOTS of hospitals in Foshan, it turns out it's only a short trip away.
On arrival, I genuinely thought we were in a bus/train station. The LED signs making some sort of declaration above the entrance. The groups of people out front smoking and waiting for something/someone. The numbered kiosk windows where you buy your tickets, along with the straight, barrier lined queues directly in front of each busy window were all present and correct. The general hustle and bustle of people trying to work out where they need to go. These are all the staple infustructure of train and bus stations, and it turns out hospitals as well. In a country where there are so many people to manage just using one familar set-up definitely makes life easier. Mind you there were more seats than usual.
I keep calling it a hospital, but the part I was in was basically a giant, multi-floored doctor's surgery - a little bit different to the bungalow type building I'm used to - it just so happened to be inside the hospital.
Thankfully my mentor filled in all the necessary forms and sorted out the insurance side of things, if it had been solely down to me I'd still be standing there trying to work out what to write. Trying to join the Chinese version of PayPal was just about the end of me so a medical form would really have finished me off.
After hobbling up the stairs - my mentor wordlessly decided that taking the lift for an injured ankle was unnecessary - and along some passageways, we arrived at corridor of doctors' offices. Finding my doctor was easy, the name GILLIAN had appeared on the TV screen above his door - definitely out of place amougst the list of Chinese patients. A computer screen with my name on was far more high-tech than I expected but then everything here is still a surprise to me. The corridor was full of people loitering about waiting for their turn and probably eaves dropping on the current patient regaling their ailments to the doctor (all the doctor's office doors were open) - I know I would have been if I could understand.
By the time it was my turn to see the doctor I was the 11th patient of the day, and this was at 9.30am. On seeing me walk in, the doctor proudly told my mentor he had trained in the UK. This definitely wasn't recently (he was no spring chicken) and if he had learnt English he'd completely forgotten it - the only English words he seemed to know were pain, infection, inflammation and antibiotics; better than nothing I suppose. Halfway through my appointment the next patient group marched in and thrusted some endoscopy pictures in my doctor's face, just as he was poking and prodding my slightly purple foot. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit concerned he was just going to abandon me and move onto the old lady and her endoscopy entourage but thankfully he didn't. After getting my prescriptions it was onto the next appointment to have the nurse bandage my foot; by the end of the day I had decided her bandaging technique was a bit shoddy - that was until I had a go!
Next stop on the hospital tour was to pay, I didn't have to foot the bill for this but I did pay special attention to how much money was handed over out of curiosity. The grand total came to about ¥350, which is about £35, quite reasonable I thought and much less than I expected it to be. According to my mentor medical treatment is now quite affordable in China, but it used to be very expensive, she didn't know why the price had dropped...
The final medical stop was at the pharmacy department. It seems in China that the vast percentage of antibiotics are administered by IV. In hindsight, the next part of the process felt a bit like Argos. My prescription was handed over to the pharmacist who in return gave me a ticket with my name and number on it. I then had to wait around until my number was called to a nice nurse in a not so nice baby pink uniform at a counter who put the IV needle in my hand. After all this I was simply handed the hanging medication and went off to find a seat in a room full of other people sitting next to their hanging IVs. I like the way that everyone just gets on with everything here without any unnecessary fuss or demands. I had to come back for the next 2 days to repeat this so that I could finish my antibiotics. By day 3 I (almost) knew exactly what was going on.
I was quite impressed, the whole process took less than 2 hours, which meant I was back in time to teach all my classes that day. The plaster on my hand and bandage on my foot even got some concerned questions from my pupils, it's nice to know they care!
So in conclusion, my foot is fully recovered and I now have a medical history in China, purely under the name GILLIAN - talk about integration!
G x
No comments:
Post a Comment