Eeew, that sausage wasn’t no sausage – and you put your face close enough to sniffit? It was my stool sample.
And it wasn’t beer in the bathroom, either. Whoever heard of pouring beer into the sink? The toilet was on the blink and I had to pee somewhere.
I had a good experience at their weekend buffet except that the ice-cream was too cold (curse their eyes).
A certain English daily? Could you perhaps be vaguer?
A certain English daily? Could you perhaps be vaguer?[/quote]
Wolf, you and I both know which one I mean.
Afraid to call a spade a spade?
I had the most beautiful hamburger there the other day and the buffet in the basement is tops. Which restaurant were you in?
There’s been enough friction between the various reincarnations of this site and that newspaper, so much so that yes I am scared to call a spade a spade.
There’s been enough friction between the various reincarnations of this site and that newspaper, so much so that yes I am scared to call a spade a spade.[/quote]
[color=red]You’re afraid of The Taipei Times?!?!?!?! [/color]
Chicken. 
kor, bet that felt good Maoman 
So much for discretion. You can take the Canadian out of …
Have recently heard a horror story about the Adventist Hospital, so beware.
A friend went to visit a neurologist due to panic attacks incurred by a serious respiratory ailment (not SARS) that was affecting his sleep. The doctor (Luo Li-zhong, I believe) prescribed horse tranquilizers in which he has had extremely unpleasant side affects that have rendered him bed-ridden for two weeks. This veterinary drug Taiwan Adventist is presently ‘testing’ on humans and had not warned my friend about this situation, they just handed it to him and recommended the dosage.
If you check this drug on the internet (erispam) you can see that it’s a class 2 drug that is not recommended for racehorses, nevertheless humans. Aside for racehorse data, the only other item that comes up in the search is a link to the Adventist’s research.
Now this tells us Taiwan is doing a lot of drug testing research in its hospitals and may be prescribing such inappropriate medications quite often. I would advise anyone whose visited a local doctor or hospital to be sure to double check the drugs given to them by running an internet check on them, as that’s all we really have to go on here.
This matter of incompetence would be met with massive litigation cases in the US, and my friend is considering taking some legal action against the Adventist regarding this matter. I hope he does.
This also tells us that The Adventist is not the sterling hospital for foreigners that it claims to be. Priority Care doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when you are faced with such incompetence.
And it tells us that the health care system, disregarding how they’ve handled SARS, is as bad as it ever was.
Like another friend says, go to Thailand for treatment, it’s a helluva lot better than anything you’d get here.
I suspect it’s all about face-saving manuevers rather than any care for humans.
[quote=“Alien”] I would advise anyone whose visited a local doctor or hospital to be sure to double check the drugs given to them by running an internet check on them, as that’s all we really have to go on here.
[/quote]
You can also check the drug (side effects , contraindications etc) by contacting the manufacturer . The local office of the major international drug companies have medical information people to answer these questions (in English & Mandarin).
Here is the link to get the phone numbers: irpma.org.tw/english/member/index.html
If the company name is not on your medecine or its a name you dont recognise then its probably a local generic product in which case…good luck…you can always refuse it & ask for a product from an internationally recognised company.
“horse tranquilizers”??? :shock: Wow! All those college memories come flooding back. 
FWIW, the generic name is Fludiazepam and it seems to be an anxiolytic, or a type of antidepressant. Looks like it’s not too uncommon in Taiwan:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer … t=Abstract
[quote=“Scuba”]
If the company name is not on your medecine or its a name you dont recognise then its probably a local generic product in which case…good luck…you can always refuse it & ask for a product from an internationally recognised company.[/quote]
Thanks for the info.
Thing is, a lot of people take it for granted that a prescription given to them by a doctor is going to help them rather than harm them. They neglect to do any research on what they’re ingesting before starting on dosages. It’s not like we’re naive in real life either, it’s just that we tend to trust doctors blindly much of the time.
Well, don’t trust a Taiwanese doctors. They really are crap across the board. Perhaps if you give them fat red envelopes they’re better. 
Be sure before anything they give you from now that you know what it is you’re taking. And like scuba says, refuse the unrecognisable products.
If they’re conducting clinical trials without obtaining patient consent, your friend can certainly get them into a shitload of hurt. Its the drug company that’ll be doing the trial, and if it finds out patient consent has not been obtained, they’ll come down on the hospital like a ton of bricks. Its a basic no-no that renders the trial results invalid=the hospital has just wasted the company’s time and money.
Are they actually doing a trial or just prescribing this drug because they think it will work? The nice think about getting presciption drugs in the US is that they always give you a nice long list of possible adverse effects.
Fludaizepam was patented in 1962 by Hoffman LaRoche. It is listed as a controlled substance (a depressant) in the US. Title 21 Sec. 1308.14 Schedule IV.
This is from a Taiwan Web site:
803.org.tw/med/med.htm
FLUDIAZEPAM
Supply：0.25MG/TAB(ERISPANR)
Use：Fludiazepam is a short acting benzodiazepine with general properties similar to those of diazepam (valium–my addition). It is used to treat anxiety disorder.
Contraindication：In patient with narrow angle glaucoma, myasthenia gravis.
Adverse effect：The adverse effects similar to those of benzodiazepines: drowsiness (3.8%), dizziness (0.8%), and tiredness (0.8%). Other side effects include: GI symptoms, difficult in urine voiding.
Usual dosage：1 Tab PO TID
Special precautions：Resp depression; cardic, hepatic, renal disorder, organic disorder in the brain; infants; elderly; patients with physical weakness.
It’s in the valium class and not unusual. Doctors of all types regularly prescribe them for my wife, her nervous way of dealing with doctors apparently leads them to believe that she would benefit from them
Seriously, she’s been having rather bothersome nervous attacks lately and a quite good (first impression) “jingshenke” doctor at the Guotai hospital prescribed them for her. She’s taken them for a few days and seems to be feeling better with no noticable side effects except a little tiredness. My wife is very sensitive to medication, so your friend may be having an unusual reaction to the drug.
Speaking of blacklists, a jingshenke doctor at the Zhenxing hospital in Shihpai prescribed her Seroxat after a token “checklist” type diagnostic session. I looked on the internet and found a lot of horror stories. Where there’s smoke there’s fire I always say! This guy seems ready to hand out the stuff like candy.
Every time I go to the Neihu Swensons I get shafted. Yet I go back because it is next to home. Anyways, they have never cooked a burger properly for me or most of my friends and cant seem to get it right when you send it back. Now I seem to have a stomach for raw hamburger. However the second point is they never, never, never bring the food out at the same time. 2,3,4,5,6,7 etc people at a tabel and the first one has finished and gone back to work by the time the last one is get his food.
3 years of shitty service and only once have I heard a good comment on this place.