Inside the Hospital

When I asked my suitemate Omar if I could come with him to play soccer with a bunch of Chinese college students, I did not think that decision would result in me spending a couple hours in the hospital down the street, but due to what I think was a torn meniscus in his knee, that is what happened.

First off, I do want to say that I’m sure that most everyone working in the medical field here in Shanghai is very competent and very hard working. Despite the rustic-looking interior and less-than-safe feeling environment one is met with upon entering, I’m sure they do a fine job.

That being said, there were some pretty bizarre aspects to this hospital. First of all, if you want any help from the emergency room, you must pay up front. While this wasn’t a huge inconvenience from Omar (though he did have to hobble across the street to an ATM to pick up cash for an MRI scan), he told me that last time he was there for a checkup, an individual came in carrying one of his hands in a bag, having recently severed it from the rest of his arm; blood was spurting everyone, yet the ER refused to admit him until he paid the fee. Ridiculous.

Second, inside the room where we found the first doctor there was an individual smoking. Now I know China is more liberal about smoking inside in general, but we were in a hospital!! You just wanted to look at him and say, “Are you kidding me??”

Finally, whenever we were told to go to a different location in the building, they wouldn’t tell us how to get there, they would just point in the general direction. So naturally we came to an intersection of halls and we didn’t know which way to go. Turns out we didn’t have to worry though: soon enough, a lady came zooming up on here electric motorcycle-scooter-thing, the kind you see on the road here all the time, and we could ask her for directions. This was inside! In a hospital.

This is certainly another glaring piece of evidence that while China has been growing tremendously these past thirty years, they still have quite a long ways to go.