Biz is good. Not heard of abt247, Hodge Zhou or any lawyers in Dalian. Check with the guys at http://daliandalian.com, they might know.

Are you trying to scare the livin’ sh.t outta me? Oh well I’m a well seasoned 73+ and I’ve eaten more than my share of dirt in Algeria, Kuwait, Spain and China. So I shouldn’t fare too badly. Your rule about not darkening the halls of any Chinese Hospital will likely be mine, unless I discover some accetable private clinic in Dalian! My plan is to spend 20 days twice a year in Vancouver to replenish my meds to unless there is some untoward emergency needing a quick trip to Hong Kong, I’ll do all my doctor stuff in Vancouver.

How be ya? How’s bizness?

Do you know http://www.abt247.com, name Hodge Zhou in Dalian? Do you know any good lawyers who speak Anglo in Dalian?

Nah, seriously – I agree with your theory of self-diagnosis & self-treatment. Wikipedia and Google are valuable tools to establish what’s wrong and how to fix it.

Laowai Patient, heal thyself !

My own little vignette on health “care” in CN.

http://www.thehumanaught.com/blog/2007/05/10/youre-never-gonna-stick-me/#comments

Mrs. Jamieson has organised accident and 100% hospital care with AIA but no medevac for 900 kuai.

Cheers,

J.

Had to laugh at that – here’s a snippet from one of my own posts about hospitalisation in China:

“Emptying the bladder was possible with extreme focus and determination. However, if you are anything like me, the prospect of taking a very open dump in cold, damp, unsanitary conditions surrounded by curious onlookers is enough to close the door of even the most relaxed orifice. Inadequate numbers of urinals and only a couple of holes in the floor drove patients and visitors (not that they need much encouragement) to do whatever, wherever. Every receptacle was overflowing with the sludge of a thousand mixed samples. Cleaners periodically soaked up the excess with their mops before using the collected moisture to wipe footprints from the corridor, a most effective way of killing two birds – and possibly a few patients – with one stone.”

“By the way, a lot of doctors in Canada are of Chinese origin.”

I think you may have just answered your own questions.

Good comments all around. And I really should stress that visits to hospitals in any country suck. Nature of the beast I guess. And Canada is certainly no exception 維特利, long waits, mis-diagnosis, etc. But when comparing the two – (in my case) Canada vs. China – they’ve both given me the wrong diagnosis (China more than Canada, but still), but brushing away the sanitation issue in favour of faster turn-around is a bit like saying, “Yeah, I don’t really care if my surgeon washes his hands as long as he cuts me quick”.

Sanitation still seems like an entirely foreign concept in China. I can’t understand is why the clearing aiyis in China seem completely unaware that disinfectants have been invented. And this isn’t just hospitals – can’t count the number of times that I’ve been at a restaurant and had the waitstaff wipe down the table with a rag that looks like it was just used (and probably was) to wipe down the toilets.

when one of my friends had a pretty serious problem, we were the ones walking all around the hospital for the whole morning to take paperwork and vials of blood to different offices that were related but not at all in the same area.

維特利: sounds like you got a bad dentist. the one i went to in the states was very high-tech and had great bedside manner, if you can call it that. sorry you had a bad experience.

I told Canadian optometrist that my eyesight was going bad for last several years. His answer was: “At your age I would be surprised”. Several months later I felt that his prescription is no good anymore. Maybe he couldn’t prevent it anyway, but if he doesn’t believe it’s happening then I wouldn’t call him a good doctor.

Or what about Canadian dentists who can’t garantee that their filling will last for longer than a year? And they still use film X-ray instead of computerized X-ray. Is it great western medicine?

By the way, a lot of doctors in Canada are of Chinese origin.

Alex N, is that sequence of actions describe US doctors or Chinese doctors?