Aug 30 2007
Hospitals in China
If you are Chinese, try very hard not to be ill. I shall add ‘in China’. Last time in Beijing, I went to lunch with my aunt/uncle with their friends, a couple: he’s heart surgeon, my uncle’s former #2 and she’s director of ophthalmology at the same hospital, on the same floor with my aunt, an OBGY. When my uncle took the helm at the hospital, he became the head of the division. A decade later, when my uncle left for another hospital, he retired. They now both retired and living in Beijing.
The number 2 is few years younger but looked visibly weak. Apparently he just had a by pass surgery. Madam Eye said, among few others, that you need to pay up front before they even take you in, and if you failed to meet required additional balance, the medication would stop immediately. I was outraged. Together he and my uncle battled many many complicated surgeries, starting from dawn to dusk. Along the way, trained countless up and coming young surgeons. Now when he needed the very same service, he was treated with incivility! I took a sip of tea, swallowed it down very hard. It’s not my place to voice anger. The four docs looked serene, as if they were gossiping about the new dish they’ve just had the night before. My uncle had retired few years earlier, (at the time, he’s opening up new hospital at break neck speed for a venture group in the smaller cities, but has retired from that since early this year) the reason was that he spent more time in court than managing the hospital, which was more than he bargained for. For a hospital to stay solvent, the patients have to pay. Many had opted to escape in the middle of the night without paying. No easy solution. US with a fatter wallet, can afford to act generously. Or maybe the Americans are just more 厚道 than the Chinese. My Yeye passed away in a hospital in the 80s, that’s another horror story.