Visiting a top-tier Chinese hospital has become a new "must-do" for many foreign tourists.
  • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    12·
    9 hours ago

    I know an Australian born Chinese who went to China for a procedure because the wait list was too long for the public option (which would have impacted her work/study for way too long), and the private option was so expensive for someone without private health insurance that she may as well just go to China for it and save money. If this is happening to Australians, who have universal healthcare*, then I can certainly imagine it happening to Yankees.

    *terms and conditions apply

  • xijinpingist [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    18·
    10 hours ago

    Can confirm. I just got home from the public hospital. Doctor’s visit fee: ¥19. two boxes of Ambien: ¥61.47. No insurance, cash on the barrelhead. There are private hospitals too which is probably what these people go to, but are still cheaper than in America. The fancy private hospital with foreign doctors near here is ¥200 to see a doctor with no insurance. In the public hospitals you get to see a doctor usually the same day. I heard if you want to see a doc in the States it’s 3 months and then he gives you a referral to a specialist, that’s another 3 months. Go get a scan, wait 3 months. Back to the specialist, 3 months. Back to see PCP, that’s another 3 months. Then you can finally start to get care. The longest I ever had to wait was on Thursday, the doctor isn’t here, you can come back on Monday. From what I understand Ambien is nearly impossible to get in the States now because this valuable sleep aid started getting abused by the usual druggies. I don’t get it. I tried one in the middle of the day and it doesn’t get you high. Evidently the California Highway Patrol rolled up on a Bentley crashed in a ditch with the engine running and driver passed out at the wheel.
    The surprised cop saw it was Tiger Woods, so it got huge publicity. WTF did that moron expect to happen when he took a sleeping pill‽ And what kind of billionaire drives his own car, anyway? If I had that kind of money I’d get a 1980s Cadillac stretch limo and a driver with a mandarin collar and peaked cap.

    • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      8 hours ago

      Ambien and other z drugs are addictive and users can develop a tolerance, become dependent on the drug to sleep at all, and experience withdrawal. Doctors in the west are often reluctant to prescribe such drugs because of such factors, and handing out the drug immediately is not a sign of quality care.

      Calling people with addiction issues “The usual druggies” is also super shitty.

      • xijinpingist [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Obviously you don’t take it every night but yeah, it’s only a few people like Tiger Woods who ruin good medicine for everyone. My brother is opiate resistant and lives in constant back pain. He can get oxycodone but it doesn’t help. What he really needs is fentanyl, which he cannot get because that’s another medicine that was ruined.

    • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      11 hours ago

      Medical care in the US is:

      1. 3-5 months to get a PCP if you don’t have one
      2. PCP talks to you for 2 minutes, tells you to eat/sleep/exercise better (pick one), that’ll be $200
      3. That doesn’t work so you call to set up another appointment, and they’re fully booked for the next 3 months
      4. PCP asks if you really tried to eat/sleep/exercise better and suggests you try mindfulness or whatever
      5. You beg and plead for a referral
      6. They are mildly annoyed but finally give you one (+$200)
      7. The specialist is fully booked for the next 5 months
      8. The appointment starts 40 minutes after your scheduled time. Specialist acts mildly annoyed and barely listens to you before insinuating that maybe it’s all in your head and you should eat/sleep/exercise better, wait and see for 6 months. The appointment lasts a total of 5 minutes. (+$300)
      9. It still doesn’t work. The specialist is still fully booked for the next 5 months.
      10. Specialist is still mildly annoyed and still barely listens to you before still insinuating that maybe it’s all in your head and you should eat/sleep/exercise better, but this time they finally order a test of some kind ($300 + testing)
      11. Good luck getting the test scheduled within the next 3 months
      12. You need to see the specialist to go over the results. They are still fully booked for the next 5 months
      13. It turns out that it wasn’t all in your head. Specialist finally prescribes something. ($300 + meds)
      14. You better hope the meds work if you don’t want to repeat this cycle until the heat death of the universe
      15. You better hope you don’t need surgery. Unless you are literally about to die you can go ahead and 2x those months.
      • xijinpingist [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        10 hours ago

        You know, when I first got here everyone lived in horror of the Chinese medical system. Doctors you have to pay off with red envelopes, prescribing unnecessary care for extra profit, etc. Now it’s totally the opposite. Also instead of the mobs waiting to get into a doctor’s office there are take-a-number lines now which actually get obeyed. I used to go in the late afternoon because they were less busy then and just shove my way in. Hey, it’s their country, I’m just copying them. Also on every doctor’s door where your waiting number is displayed, it’s got a hammer and sickle so you can see if your doc is a commie or not. Their care literally saved my life. I got a miracle medicine that had just been approved by the State Council on January 15 and got my first dose in mid-March. I’m pretty sure I was one of the first people to get it in China and possibly the entire world (made by Beigene) because two salesmen came down on the train from Shanghai with it in a cold bag and they gave it to the nurse who dripped it into me. Afterwards I had to go to this outside pharmacy and a private infusion clinic and sit there with all the old ladies on a chair for the hour it took. Usually you get your drugs from the hospital, there is no phoning it in to CVS or whatever. I try logging in to the US healthcare provider and it says “internal server error, it’s not you, it’s us” which is a fucking lie. It’s because I’m using a VPN. Turn it off and log in from a China IP and it magically works. Have to turn VPN back onto post this because Hexbear is blocked by the Great Firewall