One in the eye....for the laowai.

Well hello there Gentle reader. Sorry I have not been on for a while. My phone broke and I guess I just have not had the time.

Today Lena and I visited the Nanfang Hospital for foreigners in Guangzhou and what an experience it was.

Now we went there for Lena. Last week she fell off her scooter and hurt her knee. We hoped it would get better but after a week it was still sore and we hoped that she could get an x-ray. She also had a sore and blurry eye and she wanted to see an eye doctor. She also needed to see another doctor so we asked if we could do all 3 in one visit.

We arrived at the hospital about 2 and at 3 we were met by our very own translator who arranged for us to see all the doctors and did all the talking on our behalf.

We were seen by the eye doctor but a spot with the other doctor came up and we had to quickly run through to another room. After we were seen we returned to the eye doctor who it seemed to me was a bit pissed off that she had to wait for us.

She asked Lena some very personal questions took her blood pressure and then finally examiner her eye. As we thought, Lena had a nasty dose of conjunctivitis and the doctor then gave us a prescription.

Job done you might think. As we were walking with the translator to the pharmacy she told us that the eye doctor had given Lena a prescription for blood pressure tablets. Now her BP was elevated but not by much and only because she was nervous about seeing the doctor.
We had to go back to the eye doctor to get this removed.

How dare she prescribe medicine like this without doing proper tests. In Latvia and the UK this would not be done.

When we got the prescription we discovered that the eye doctor had given us 3 different types of eye drops. There was 5 of one type, 3 of another and 2 of the 3rd. WTF?

Any one for eye-drops?

She then had the nerve to tell Lena who has been wearing contact lenses for 9 years and using eye drops for years that she should be taught how to use the eye drops. We objected politely but the doctor got very stroppy. Lena got very angry because the eye doctor had another male patient in with her and she felt that the doctor was trying to humiliate us.

Lena was so angry that in the end we left without seeing about her knee.

In the end we had little choice but to take the medicine. We spoke to a doctor friend of ours and he told us this is totally unacceptable and that the hospital were trying to take advantage of the Laowai's.

Laowai is a rather offensive term that Chinese people use to describe foreigners.

We have been in China for over 7 months and this was the first time I felt this angry at "the system". Colleagues have said that in China its best not to get sick. After todays events I can see why. We both feel that medical professionals have taken advantage of our lack of Chinese to sell overpriced meficine.

Dont be sick in China. It may cost you more than money.

#china #laowai #doctors #nanfanghospital #rippedoff