Asthmatics Beware - read this

Life Health & Fitness
1

Something you should know if you have Asthma.

Going to hospital is one of the most popular Taiwanese pastimes - at any given time in a hospital in Taipei there will be over a thousand people waiting to see a doctor. Very very few of them will have anything wrong with them whatsoever.

If you have an asthma attack and end up in A&E you are in grave danger of not being seen due to the enormous number of Taiwanese with nothing whatsoever wrong with them wandering around looking for things to do. If you do get the attention of medical staff, instead of treatment, you are likely to be asked to fill in forms and have a conversation instead of the urgent life-saving medical treatment you need.

This happened to my wife at the Chang Gen Memorial Hospital (where the A&E doctors really really do NOT care) and to a lesser extent a Cathay where we managed to convince them to treat her.

This unbelievable attitude comes about I think because 99% of people in A&E do not actually require treatment. So the A&E staff just sort of wander about in a daze. If what had happened to my wife at Chang Gen had happened in the UK those two doctors would be struck off and the hospital would be looking at a huge lawsuit. My wife’s lips were starting to go blue and these cunts TWO OF THEM were asking her to fucking fill in a form.

Best to actually keep at home one of those nebulizer things they plug into the hospital oxygen. When you land in A&E it takes them for ever to get one.

Are there any decent private expensive hospitals here where the doctors actually have an ounce of professionalism and where the fees are high enough to keep the holidaymakers out ?

2

Right. Teresa Tung (the famous Taiwanese singer) is said to have died due to just such an inability to get the proper care at the crucial moment for her asthma . . . . . . .

3

Yeah, someone said that when we mentioned the story to a Taiwanese friend. The doctors may be good at pandering to hypochondria, but they’re clearly not much use in an emergency.

4

Another case of Taiwan and Thailand getting mixed up. :laughing:
Teresa Teng died while on holiday in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

5

Yeah, A&E is ridiculous. After a traffic accident, I was alone, dizzy and close to fainting from pain and I had to fill out a form in Chinese before they’d put me in a queue to see a doctor.

PS NEVER go to Hoping Hospital.

Brian

6

i had to go to the emergency room at the adventist hospital on BaDe road and they were pretty good. they took care of the problems nd did all the lab work right away. It helps to have a chinese friend with you.

but i agree, all other hospitals that I’ve been to in taipei are about as helpful and lying in the street shouting “medic!!!”

7

Off topic, but what does A&E mean? I assume it’s like ER (Emergency Room) in the US.

8

Accident and Emergency

9

[quote=“hexuan”]Something you should know if you have Asthma.

Going to hospital is one of the most popular Taiwanese pastimes - at any given time in a hospital in Taipei there will be over a thousand people waiting to see a doctor. Very very few of them will have anything wrong with them whatsoever.

If you have an asthma attack and end up in A&E you are in grave danger of not being seen due to the enormous number of Taiwanese with nothing whatsoever wrong with them wandering around looking for things to do. If you do get the attention of medical staff, instead of treatment, you are likely to be asked to fill in forms and have a conversation instead of the urgent life-saving medical treatment you need.

This happened to my wife at the Chang Gen Memorial Hospital (where the A&E doctors really really do NOT care) and to a lesser extent a Cathay where we managed to convince them to treat her.

This unbelievable attitude comes about I think because 99% of people in A&E do not actually require treatment. So the A&E staff just sort of wander about in a daze. If what had happened to my wife at Chang Gen had happened in the UK those two doctors would be struck off and the hospital would be looking at a huge lawsuit. My wife’s lips were starting to go blue and these cunts TWO OF THEM were asking her to fucking fill in a form.

Best to actually keep at home one of those nebulizer things they plug into the hospital oxygen. When you land in A&E it takes them for ever to get one.

Are there any decent private expensive hospitals here where the doctors actually have an ounce of professionalism and where the fees are high enough to keep the holidaymakers out ?[/quote]

I guess you just got unlucky this time with the doctor(s) you had. I had a “episode” a few weeks ago when I was in Taipei. Got really sick, terrible pains in my back and abdomen. I tried to get home (to Taidong) - went to the airport, but collapsed before I could board a plane. So we (the Little Woman and I) went to Chang Gong, which is just near the airport (maybe you went to the one in Linkou? Or Kaohsiung?). Anyway, the Chang Gong we visited was very good. I was given prompt attention - a shot for pain (Demerol, I think) and they ran a bunch of tests. Within the hour they had a diagnosis - kidney stones.

They offered to admit me, but I wanted to get home. I spent the night in the emergency room, next day managed to board a plane and returned to Taidong. A follow-up with a local urologist confirmed that Chang Gong’s diagnosis was correct.

So I have no particular complaints, other than that there is no place for the person taking care of you to sleep. She squeezed into the (very narrow) bed with me - would have been romantic had I not been so ill, with an IV drip in my arm. Maybe this is done intentionally to keep people from using the emergency room as a free hotel. As far as the paperwork goes, I can’t comment, as it was done for me.

But you are certainly right about hypochondriacs in Taiwan. A lot of people come into the emergency room with headaches and colds, which they could have treated by staying home and taking aspirin. In the regular daytime outpatient clinics, it’s even worse, with people just coming in to collect medicines they don’t need at all (simply because they get it for free). Not sure what placebos the doctors prescribe for them - maybe vitamin C tablets. Quite a few people convince the doctors to admit them, and they spend a week or two in the hospital watching cable TV, getting visited by sympathetic friends, receiving flowers, and gulping down medicines/placebos. I guess it’s more fun than staying at home, and the whole thing is free, so why not? Must be somewhat depressing to be medical staff and seeing all this waste of taxpayer’s money. No wonder the system is going broke.

10

It’s not completely free. You have to pay NT 250 NT to see a doc and there’s a charge for collecting repeat prescriptions.
It costs well over NT 500 if you go to the ER at night. Any stay in a hospital ward costs at least NT 1000 a night even if you have national health insurance. But this income is low compared to the costs incurred; the hospital will still need to apply for reimbursement from the government so you are right that the hypos are wasting taxpayers’ money.

I believe there are plans afoot to persuade people to pick up repeat prescriptions at local pharmacies instead of having to make a trip to the hospital. It’s a great idea.

11

I think Adventist is one of the best hospitals.
As for hypochondriacs, isn’t the situation in Taiwan similar to other countries that have nationalized health care…I jackknifed an 18-wheeler on black ice up in Canada and had to send three days in the hospital. I have had an ongoing ear infection for 10 years because the idiot doctor in the emergency room patched my ear up without cleaning my ear canal of all the blood (I lost a chunk of my ear somewhere on the highway :wink: ) and gunk. The nurses explained to me that the old man sharing the room with me was in the hospital because his apartment was being painted and he had no where else to go.

12

[quote=“Spack”]
It’s not completely free. You have to pay NT 250 NT to see a doc and there’s a charge for collecting repeat prescriptions.
It costs well over NT 500 if you go to the ER at night. Any stay in a hospital ward costs at least NT 1000 a night even if you have national health insurance. But this income is low compared to the costs incurred; the hospital will still need to apply for reimbursement from the government so you are right that the hypos are wasting taxpayers’ money.

I believe there are plans afoot to persuade people to pick up repeat prescriptions at local pharmacies instead of having to make a trip to the hospital. It’s a great idea.[/quote]

You’re right, not totally free (for most people) but not quite as expensive as all that. Normally, it’s NT$100 to see a doctor during office hours, and emergency room costs NT$350. If admitteded to the hospital, it’s something really cheap (maybe NT$100, don’t know for sure) if you stay in a 6-person room, but NT$1300 for a 2-person room (at least that’s what I paid not too long ago). Must be more for a 1-person room, but I don’t know how much. Some people do qualify for reduced rate or free (retired servicemen, aborigines, children under age 2). That last category (introduced as one of Chen Shuibian’s reforms) has been costly - a lot of people bring their kids to the hospital every week for the first two years of their life simply because it’s free, even though the kids are not sick at all. A great way to turn them into lifelong hypochondriacs, I would guess. Another thing - I think taking an ambulance is free, or close to free - probably less than a taxi, so I imagine a lot of people use the ambulance service when they could have taken a taxi.

Anyway, the system really is losing money. A lot of money. Not sure how much longer the government can afford all this. But for now, if you’re a foreigner living here and you need surgery, it’s a bargain.

regards,
Robert

13

Taiwan is worse than many other countries, including Canada. I’ve read that the average number of doctor visits per capita is 6 times higher in Taiwan than in Canada or the U.S.A.
One reason is cultural - Chinese (in Taiwan or China) go to the doctor for things that most Westerners would not - eg. minor colds and headaches. They also tend to go to the hospital instead of just to a doctor. In my hometown in Canada, if you went to the hospital with some, or in fact most, of the ridiculous complaints that have Taiwanese people running to the emergency room, you’d get an angry lecture along with your treatment.

14

In my country (the USA) you’d get a lecture plus a bill for US$500.

15

If I went to see my doctor in the UK with a cold I’d get chased out of the building and back through the high street!

When the missus suggests I visit the doctor when I’ve got a cold I always say “Why? Have the Taiwanese invented a cure for the common cold and not told anybody else in the world about it?!” :loco:

16

One good thing about Taiwan is that you can see a specialist right away. I had an irregular heartbeat for a while so I went to see a heart specialist at the biggest hospital in taichung.
I wouldn’t have been able to do that in the UK. I would have had to go through my local GP, provided of course he or she felt that I needed to see a specialist.

Incidentally, in UK, going to see a doctor doesn’t cost a single penny - you just pay a prescription charge if medicine is prescribed.

17

I think Taiwanese doctors encourage people to go see them for insignificant illnesses, such as common cold, to make more money.

Ever notice how when you go to a local clinic for cold, flu or whatever, they always give you these little packages containing all sorts of pills? Maybe they are trying to make people believe that these “specially formulated” packages are more effective than over-the-counter-drugs. Well, maybe they are… I don’t know, but I doubt it.

They should follow the practice in Australia, just tell people to take Panadols - eventually people will figure out it’s much faster to just take Panadols whenever they are ill rather than go to the doctors and be told to take Panadols.

18

Does anyone know a good doctor to see if an asthma attack occurs?

I think what hexuan is trying to do - and it’s a really good idea - is to line up a doctor/clinic in advance so that in an emergency, he knows where to go.

Sorry, I don’t have a doc to recommend, but wanted to bring the thread back to the question…

19

The Priority Centre in the Adventist is one such place. Funny how there’s no malingerers in there when you have to part with a few blue sheets to see a quack.

Turns out the “medicine” that Chang Geng hospital supplied is either a fake, or at best faulty.

Good to know that a drug your life depends on can be supplied to a patient in this state.

Nothing comes out of the canister when it’s activated - my wife has been sucking in air for the past month, and surprise surprise, had 3 attacks in a row. I’ve spent NT$15,000 on emergency medical treatment for the missus because Chang Geng are handing out dud medicine. Will I be taking this further ? You can bet on it.

Why do the doctors here all tell you everything is caused by the weather ? Asthma attacks are caused by asthma uncontrolled by drugs (as was the case here) or by a sudden infection or other trigger - allergy being a common one.

We lived in England in one of the dampest houses known to man. We lived in Shanghai in 42 degree summers. We lived in Ireland in minus 17 degree winters. No asthma attacks. What is this weather nonsense ? Given that the weather changes from cold to wet to dry to sunny in Ireland and England in the space of one day, it’s not a change in the weather that drings on asthma attacks. If that were true asthma sufferers in the UK would all be dead.

I see now that to be a doctor here all you have to do is say to patients: “Yes ma’am, were seeing a lot of these broken legs this week, it’s due to the change in the weather. Take these and come back every day for the rest of your life and you’ll be fine. Don’t forget to pay the lady on your way out. Next !”

20

Unfortunately, I didn’t go to see the doctor when I got a cold, and it became bronchitis.

So…

Kenneth