Beijing Hospital Experience

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I’m recovering from an operation carried out in a Beijing hospital recently and I thought some of you might be interested to know what that was like. An integral part of extensive travelling is having medical challenges so forewarned is forearmed! One thing I have come to realise this week is that I am a person who enjoys experiences “outside my comfort zone.” I know that most people would be horrified at the thought and run home to familiar territory, but not me. I was really keen to see what it would be like.

Obviously I wasn’t seriously ill and this would be called “elective surgery”, that is, I’d been putting it off for years and I wanted to get it sorted out before I retire next month. It was no big deal but the symptoms can be annoying at times and something had to be done sometime. It was about sorting out the effects on one's body of having five children. Enough said. We have a good global insurance policy with our job, which helps a lot.

I will only talk about hospital services in Beijing, because that is all I know. Perhaps it is multi-layered but up there at the top for Westerners is Beijing United Family Hospital. When I first arrived in China, a man who had been living here for many years told me that the only hospital he would ever go to is BUFH. Having been there earlier this year, I have to say it is absolutely amazing! I felt like I was the only patient in the place – no waiting for an appointment, no waiting to be seen, the undivided attention of the consultant, cheerful, charming nurses, the most modern facilities, etc. Mind you, it is very expensive, so really only for people with good global insurance.

As an example of the incredible service at BUFH, when I had blood tests the nurse asked if I would like the results. In another life I was a medical laboratory technologist, specialising in haematology and blood transfusion, so I would be able to understand the test results. I told the nurse, as she was taking my blood sample at 10am that I would like to see them sometime. Incredibly, they were in my email Inbox at 5pm!

I saw the consultant gynaecologist at BUFH in July and he determined that he didn’t have the expertise needed to solve my problem. He recommended a woman surgeon at Peking Union Medical College Hospital. It’s in downtown Beijing, near Wang Fu Jing, the first pedestrian shopping area in Beijing. So I went to see her in late August and, on the spot, she was able to ask me when I would like to have the operation and reserve the date. Amazing. She told me that I should be prepared to be in hospital for a week after surgery. That seemed a bit OTT to me, but she said she wanted to be sure that my innards were functioning normally before I was discharged.

One thing that is amazing to me about hospital services in China is that the patient keeps his/her own medical records. When you register for the first time you pay about 50 cents and they write your name and date-of-birth on what looks like a child’s exercise book from school. At your consultation you give this to the doctor who writes notes in it, then gives it to you, the patient, to take home until the next visit! At my consultation with the gynaecologist I didn’t have a booklet like that. As she asked me questions the doctor made notes on a sheet of paper with the name of the hospital across the top, in Chinese. By the end of the session she had completed a full page with the date of my impending surgery. There was no carbon copy yet she handed me the entire page to take home! I have no idea how she remembered who I was or on what date she was to schedule my surgery. That did not inspire my confidence in the system.

I applied to the insurance company for prior approval for the operation and, according to the Head Office in UK, that happened OK, but I didn’t hear anything more from the hospital. Less than a week before my scheduled surgery a Chinese woman in our office spent hours ringing every department of the hospital, trying to find out if the operation was really going to take place and when and where I should go the day before. Nobody had ever heard of me. This was dispiriting and reignited my fears that it was not a good idea to send me home with my medical notes in hand.

At nearly every number that the Chinese woman rang the hospital staff person said, “Why didn’t she get the phone number of the doctor?” To most Westerners I’m sure that it would be preposterous to ask a consultant, “Excuse me, but could I have your personal mobile phone number?” I’m learning that that is the usual here. An Irish nurse who is working in administration at a large Chinese hospital told me that she was discussing a problem with a patient and ended the conversation with, “Would you like me to contact your doctor and ask for advice?” The patient replied, “No thanks, he text me this morning so I’ll text him back if I need to.” The Irish nurse was amazed at the casual doctor-patient communications. So there is a tip for you.

When enquiries to Peking Hospital on my behalf reached a dead-end, I emailed the consultant at Beijing UFH who had referred me. (At my first visit his nurse had had given me his card with his e-address and phone number.) He told me I should just wait to get the call from Peking Hospital on Monday. He explained that, as one patient is discharged, the hospital Admissions Dept. calls the next person on the admissions list. I decided I would go to the hospital anyway and wait.

I was surprised when they actually rang me at 10:00am on Monday, just before I was going to leave, to tell me there was a bed and I could come in. She said, "Be sure to bring your 50,000RMB/ €6,000 deposit." I said that my operation had been pre-approved by my insurance company and she said, "We don't know anything about that." Luckily, minutes before I was leaving for the hospital, the insurance company gave me the address and phone number of their Chinese agent.

Chinese hospitals don't let you past reception until you have paid your deposit. They brought me to the insurance section who said they'd never heard of me and had no pre-approval. I got them to ring the agent and ask them to fax their letter again. Then the clerk saw that the letter had been sent to Beijing UFH! I was sent back down to the icy cold reception hall to wait. It took four hours. The insurance company’s 24-hour emergency line staff in UK couldn't do anything because my file was in the office that would open in 4 hours’ time.

Meanwhile I was stressing out because the surgeon had told me I would be undergoing tests to establish my status prior to surgery. There was no canteen of any kind and no vending machines. I was starving by 3pm. Finally the Shanghai agent rang the hospital to say that she was sending their Beijing agent to the hospital with the cash payment. By the time she arrived and made the payment I had a hunger headache. When I got to the ward the doctors said there were tons of test to do but they realised that they had to send me down the road to get something to eat. Luckily I had noticed a mini-bar fridge in the room so I brought back an extra KFC breast of chicken.

When I entered my private room I was amazed at how HOT it was. I immediately turned the heat down to 15°C and opened the window, despite the chilly breeze. The bed had a duvet so I removed that from its cover and put it into the closet.

Once I was checked in I had to undergo every kind of test. First the nurse told me to change into hospital-issue super-starched cotton pyjamas, then she told me to follow a uniformed woman to my chest X-ray. With my cardigan over the pyjamas I went down on the crowded elevator to the draughty front hall and down a corridor to sit and wait with all the out-patients. Question: if they knew that a chest X-ray was a necessary preliminary, why didn’t they tell me to go down when I was fully clothed? Crazy. I ended up having lots of procedures until almost midnight.

In the midst of all this a nurse told me that the operation couldn't go ahead unless I had a relative here to sign for it and make decisions if something went wrong. What?! Of course I should have received all this information in a letter beforehand. I had to call on this very nice young Irishman who I know well and can trust. I had told the surgeon in August that I am a coeliac and should be on a gluten-free diet. Well, the hospital staff hadn't a clue what a gluten-free diet was so all I had to eat egg jelly and red bean soup during my stay.

The next day nobody seemed to know when my operation would take place. I had to go to the laboratory for a test in the morning and I was surprised when the intern told me to put on a jacket and follow her. Dressed again in hospital-issue cotton pyjamas and slippers, with a short bed jacket, I traipsed behind her onto elevators, down corridors full of out-patients, around corners, up escalators… With all the fully-clothed people hanging around, I felt at times like I was in a shopping mall. When the test was over I had to follow the intern back to the ward. It struck me as strange that I was being exposed to all these germs just hours before my surgery.

I have to say that all of the nurses were incredibly nice. Most of them spoke pretty good English and they were all under 40 years of age. Maybe that was because I was in the “International wing” and only young nurses would know English. I’m not sure why it was referred to as “International” when I was the only foreigner on our floor, which had 32 private rooms. The only unpleasant person I came across was the female intern who had weak English and seemed to resent having to deal with a foreigner.

Suddenly, at 11am I was told to hurry up, I had been called to the operating theatre. I was ordered to strip naked and lie on the trolley, then I was covered by a green surgical sheet. We rushed off down corridors and onto elevators filled with coughing visitors and crying babies. As we passed draughty hallways I had this fleeting fear that a gust of wind would catch the sheet and reveal me in my altogethers. We went at a fast clip down to the basement and through some more swinging doors. When I got to the operating room a green-clad nurse asked me my name, DOB, etc. – and what operation I thought I was having today. I thought that was a wise question – you never know what mix-ups can occur.

The operation was interesting and different and I slept through it all. People were super-nice throughout, even though the circumstances seemed strange at times. The Irish friend came up trumps and was very supportive. I woke up in the Recovery Room where nurses were chatting to me regularly. In no time I was back in my room on the ward.

The doctor came for a brief visit and told me she would leave som Chinese traditional medicines for me. The intern told me I could eat a little at 6pm and, if that went OK, I could eat a full dinner at 8pm. Luckily I was friendly with the ward aid who told me that she goes home at 6pm and there would be no food after that. She said she would look for food for me on her way home. I tried my best to eat the various dishes she gave me. They only had Chinese TV in the room and the evening past uneventfully. For the second night in a row, at about 11:30pm there was terrible noise down on the ground floor outside my window. When I looked out I saw that the hospital maintenance staff were packing up the day's recycling, obviously from the entire hospital. The clanging and battering went on for about an hour. Surely they could find a better time to make all that noise.

The next morning the intern came in and told me I was going home. “What? I was supposed to stay at least 2 days.” It was a pity because I was having such a good time. I think the intern was delighted not to be bothered with the gluten-free diet anymore. I was the only foreign woman on a floor of 32 private rooms and maybe she didn't like having to deal with foreigners. The intern told me to go home and go to bed and come back if I get a fever or serious problems. It was all rather whirlwind and they gave me no prescriptions or medicines when I was leaving.

Amazingly there were no taxis at the hospital and they couldn't call one. They said, "Everybody is driven to hospital by their family." I pointed out that not everyone in Beijing owns a car. This huge teaching hospital is a few blocks from the first major shopping street in Beijing, near Tianamen Square, not out in the boonies. In the end I had to go out in the icy wind, exactly 24 hours after surgery, dragging my wheelie and carrying my bag plus my chest X-ray which, for some strange reason, they insisted that I take home in a big bag. There were loads of taxis driving by! What was the problem? Why did none of them go in the circular driveway to the International Patients' Section?

I had post-operative orders from the doctor not to lift anything for some weeks and no heavy lifting for 6 months. (No swimming for 3 months which is a real drag.) Well, the taxi driver refused to lift my bag into his trunk. I had even waved my "Peking UMC Hospital" chest X-ray bag in front of his face and said in Chinese, "Please, I'm sick." Eventually I had to ask a passer-by to oblige.

So now I'm home with over a week off work to "recuperate." Great - lots of time to read and study Chinese. The first night at home I slept 11 hours - I must have been exhausted. As I said, the intern gave me no medication to take home, just the phone number of the Nurses’ station on my floor. By the following Monday, 6 days after my operation, I thought that things were not as they should be. I decided to ring the hospital for advice. My Mandarin school is next door to this apartment complex so I went next door and asked my teacher to call the hospital for me. She rang the number the intern had written. After trying many variations my Chinese teacher came to the conclusion that the number was wrong.

This is China – expect the unexpected.

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Comments

[deleted_46288]

Wow!
Thanks for sharing that experience. Living in Asia, you often wonder how you will be treated should any medical emergency occur. I have images of you grasping desperately at your green sheet hoping that nobody will inadvertently see you in your birthday suit hee hee. I cracked my head open last week and had to have several stitches, which I believe were inserted by Vietnam's best military field medic. Oh well, at least it's something I can share with the grandchildren :)