So my girl came down with a bit of sore throat, and this morning she went to the clinic(next to our building) came home about 45 minutes later with some medicine in her hands, the shocking part is that she received 9 different medications!!! I have never seen this before in the states for a simple sore throat! She told me when she went there, they asked her what was bothering her, she said her throat, they asked anything else, she says her eyes and nose itches a bit…long story short, she has 2 for her eyes, 2 for nose, 5 for her throat. WTF is going on here!! Only good part is one of the medicines has Codiene…I might has to sneak some for my …cough…cough…sore throat too.
After the first few years here, I gave up going to “clinics”. Most of them are pure garbage. If you are truly sick, go to the hospital. Just my two cents…
Doctors here make money from prescribing pills. The more they prescribe, the more they make. Also, most Taiwanese expect to get given pills when they see the doctor and the more they get, the better they feel. They don’t appear to have heard about the placebo effect. The health system here would benefit a lot from making it illegal for doctors to provide the drugs the supply. The temptation to over medicate is too much for most of them to resist. I had one co-teacher who went to the doctor with a cold and was given the usual mutlicoloured smarties the quacks here supply. The funny thing was that the packet had a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. Sums up the local clinics really.