Cash, I mean. It is a known, Shanghai-expat, truth that one must keep a stash of cash in the house in the event of an emergency visit to the hospital. Medical services here are like going to the gas pump - you pay first, then you pump. Last night we had the unfortunate circumstance of experiencing this first hand.
Max woke up about 2 a.m. wheezing - really wheezing. We have a nebulizer and albuterol on hand for this not uncommon occurence, but for the first time in the history of Max's mild asthma, the breathing treatment did not work. Hot steamy shower, more albuterol, some motrin to quelch the 103 degree temperature and I look at Jeff in defeat and ask him to call the ambulance. Stupid idea. Twenty minutes later, no ambulance. Better idea: call for a taxi. I directed the taxi driver to the nearby Children's Hospital but they do not have nighttime emergency services, so we drove somewhere much further away. It was an hour from when I first determined we needed to get to a hospital until we arrived at a hospital and all I could think was "What if this was a REAL emergency??"
We arrived at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center - Did I mention this is a Chinese hospital and that nothing is written in English? Fortunately I know enough key words and I am really good at pointing and acting, so I can get a few basic ideas across. After a seemingly-much-longer-than-necessary conversation, I am directed to a window where I complete a form with Max's name and address and then this:
1. Go to registration window - pay 15 rmb to get a card and receipt showing Max as registered.
2. Go to another desk - hand card and receipt to clerk who directs us into a room with a doctor.
3. A non-English speaking doctor.
4. Charades, pleading, coughing, forehead touching (very little actual inspection by doctor) and then doctor takes out a small booklet (each patient gets their own 'chart' which will never make it into any permanent file anywhere, but will be useful just for today) where he writes copious words, way more than our conversation warranted in my opinion. Doctor fills out two more slips of paper with what look to be quantities - ah! medicine. Points me in direction of registration window.
5. Return to registration window and offer up all papers currently in my possession. That will be 238 rmb please. I am paying for the medicine the doctor just indicated in his treatment plan. Medicine that will be administered here and now, but which I must pay and pick up and then carry to next area. Clerk points me to pharmacy windown.
6. I offer up stamped receipt and she instantly (how did she know?) produces a bag with several viles of liquid and powder as well as two bags of IV glucose solution. Points me elsewhere.
7. First treatment is a breathing treatment. The nurse sits us on a bench, prepares the treatment and leaves us. When done, she walks us down a hall to where the IV will be administered. And now it gets weird because we look around us and see many, many young children who have IV's in their forehead! Yes, their forehead. Just as Max begins to panic that they maybe are planning to poke a needle in his head, I see an older boy with an IV in his arm and assure Max that nobody will be poking him in the head. (As a sidebar - Max woke up at midnight on this same night in the midst of a night terror and he was screaming "get this thing off of my head!" as he pointed to his forehead. Enter twilight zone music.)
8. Nurse has Max sit on table, inserts IV, then hands Jeff the IV bag to carry into a room where there are these little cubicle-like seats - the size of a toddler's daybed - lined up with IV hangers. We hook our IV bag up and sit on the disgusting gray vinyl cushion in the cubicle along with dozens of other parents and kids most of whom are screaming because they've got a needle in their forehead!! By the way, they seem to scream even more when the needle is removed. I have never heard so much screaming for an extended period of time interspersed with the chinese parents yabbering in what does not seem to me to be a soothing tone at all.
9. Max has two IV bags. The first one takes about 45 minutes and already we are squirming. I have by now sent Jeff home because he has his boss and colleagues in town all week for a big staff meeting. The nurse changes to the second IV bag which drips slower than molasses. I hunt down a nurse who takes us to another room to reinsert the IV needle. No better. She adjusts it and adjusts it. After an hour-and-a-half we are only 1/2 way through this bag. Max and I make a deal that we give it 15 more minutes and then we're done. We make it 30 minutes and are, maybe, 2/3 (I am probably being generous) done. I pick up the IV bag and walk with Max down the hall and say to several nurses "Women haole" - 'We are done'. She points at the unfinished bag and I repeat, emphasizing the "we" part of the 'we are done' sentence.
10. Back to doctor for recheck. He confers with two other docs. "Women huijia?" I ask if we can go home. This provokes a chuckle. "Bu huijia" - No go home. And finally a couple English words: 'Follow him.' So Max and I follow a doctor through a bunch of halls, into a crowded lobby, he's asking several people directions, we follow him upstairs where we are greeted by a nurse who speaks English. She explains that we will be registered here in this Special Services Department and where we will be able to speak to an English speaking doctor. I am grateful that someone will be able to tell me what is going on.
11. We must pay 300 rmb to speak to the doctor.
12. We are escorted to the "Shanghai Expo Consultation Office" and see a Chinese doctor who speaks pretty good English. She tells me Max has laryngitis and that the ENT will come to see him. We wait. English-speaking doctor remains with us to translate for ENT.
13. Have I mentioned how very little actual doctoring has taken place? The ENT determines that Max needs to remain in the hospital for observation for the next 5-6 hours. But good news: there is a private room we can stay in with a bed. Oh, and Max needs another breathing treatment and a shot.
14. Back to the window to pay for the medicine - 34 rmb - and the room - 300 rmb. And, 'do you have the mask for the breathing treatment?' No. 60 rmb.
15. To another room for the breathing treatment where Max and I sit on child-sized chairs along the wall with a treatment table 2 feet away on which lies an infant who is getting an IV inserted in her head in plain view, screaming at the top of her lungs while her parents chatter unsoothingly. There is NO privacy here.
16. Then we are placed in Room 7 to wait for the nurse to bring Max's shot. There is a daybed and a desk and there are doors on either side of the room that people keep opening because clearly they use this room as a hallway. I figure that we will get the shot then move to our 'private room' which we paid 300 rmb, but it soon becomes clear that this IS the private room.
17. The shot is BIG, goes into the muscle between his hip and butt, and takes a long, slow time being administered while Max SCREAMS. And then we curl up on the disgusting daybed together and sleep. And play games we make up as we go along.
18. After the allotted time, both docs come to our room. Yes, he is feeling much better. I am given instructions for going home. Max needs one more breathing treatment before we leave and some medicine to take at home.
19. Back to the cashier to pay for the medicine. 151 rmb please. Back to the room for the breathing treatment. We are handed some pills and instructions. And finally huijia (go home).
20. I ponder the arduous nature of this process at the same time that I am grateful that when we were done, we were done. No waiting to be checked out. No wondering what bills will show up in our mailbox and how much they will be. The experience is complete. Haole. Finished.
21. We come home and Max asks if I am going to look on the computer to find out why they stick needles in peoples heads.
