1. You are bartering over the price of your surgery.
2. You find yourself pulling away from the doctor because you have forgotten the word for gloves and he is not wearing any/you find yourself eliciting the word for gloves several times per visit.
4. You are using phrases such as "wo shi lao wai dan shi wo bu shi ben" (I am foreign but I am not stupid) because you are being asked to pay 1000s for something you end up paying 200 for.
5. There is no soap in the bathroom they ask you to pee in the cup in.
6. There are people smoking in the waiting rooms, stairwells, hallways and oncology units.
WELCOME TO CHINA!!!
On my third day here in China my school took me to have a physical. Here is how it went.
April 13
Today I woke up around 8:45 so I could be taken to the doctors at 9:15. I went to the school where I met Kimi and another Chinese women who would be taking me to the doctors. When we arrived, I filled out a form with help from Kimi since some of it needed to be written in characters. The women at the desk took my picture, typed in my info and handed me a card.
The card had several boxes on it with arrows from one to the next. I changed into a top they gave me after being lead upstairs. The first room we went to, there was a man with no shirt on inside wiping his stomach and getting off of a bed. Kimi said to lay down on it and pull up my gown so that they could do an ultra sound to see if I was pregnant, then she left the room. I was a bit surprised to see that they didn't change the bedding or anything, it seemed a bit unsanitary, but I didn't want to be difficult so I got on the bed and laid down.
I said "Ni hao" which means hello here. The lady said nothing back. If theres a word for bedside manner she has probably never heard that either I thought to myself. A few minutes later I was on my way to the next room. Here I was told to lay down again on a bed that hadn't been sanitized or changed. The lady said something to me I didn't understand then got Kimi who came into the room and asked me to roll up the bottom of my pants. I did so and the nurse put clips on my ankles, clips on my wrists and clips all over my stomach and chest. She walked over to her computer and then back to me almost immediately, removed all the clips and said "all done" in broken English. I'm still not sure what they were testing for but I walked into the hallway and found Kimi waiting for me.
She took me to a counter with a glass window and a hole in front of it. She told me to reach through the hole and grab a cup. I gave a slight laugh and asked if they were clean. Kimi didn't answer, just replied that they this was for a urine test to see if I was again, pregnant or using drugs. I knew I would come up negative for both so I grabbed the cup and went to where the bathroom was. I was surprise to see that the toilets were drop toilets, more surprised to see that the bathrooms didn't have soap.
At this point I was disgusted. I couldn't believe that this was any type of medical facility at all. I handed over the cup and asked Kimi where I could find some soap. She looked in the men's room and said that they must be all out today. Coming from such a medical family, you can probably guess how grossed out I was. This clearly was far from the western medicine I knew from home.
Next, Kimi said it was time to have a blood test done. There were several young Chinese girls all getting this done in front of me. I kept quiet and watched. The needles that were being used were clean, which made me breathe a slight sigh of relief. No sooner had I fully exhaled did I realize that the nurse had no gloves on. She was going from girl to girl, drawing blood, with NO GLOVES ON.
I said to Kimi, "Where are her gloves?"
Kimi replied, "Don't worry her hands are clean."
Doubtful, I thought, theres not even soap in the bathroom. The countless diseases I could get raced through my head. I didn't want to make a big deal, but there was no way I was letting her hands weren't going anywhere near me unless she wore gloves.
"Do you think she could put some on when she draws my blood?" I asked.
"I'll ask her" Kimi replied, "but what if they don't have any?" she asked.
I was getting frustrated and uncomfortable at this point. "Then I won't get my blood taken." I said in a rather blunt matter. It was her job to take new teachers to the doctors, I couldn't believe this was the first she had ever had this problem with this.
When we approached, Kimi and the nurse talked for a few minutes. I wish I knew what was being said. I thought the conversation would be quicker. Surely this wasn't an obscene thing to ask for? She found some gloves, showed me they were clean, and put them on before taking my blood. The whole ordeal was done after that. Needless to say things are pretty different here, this is just another example. Welcome to China.
