Medical

25 March 2008

Today the driver took me to the hospital with Zhang Jie (Chinese teacher who teachers Professional English but this term is working in the office) for my medical. Now I had been warned by other foreign teachers about what to expect but nothing can really prepare you for the encounter!

Firstly the school has completed the form for you which is taken to register (I guess). Now the school has attached 2 different photos to the form and Zhang Jie tells me that they are not going to accept this. Well me being me, I'm not going to accept that these two photos are a different person, given I know they are me.

OK one of the photos was an old photo I had in my passport wallet of when I was 33. Now I haven't aged that much! The other photo was of me taken yesterday. So I proceeded to discuss the point with them in English and they discussed back in Chinese. I won - they accepted the photos.

I then went in to have an xray. Rather interesting when someone is moving your body into uncomfortable positions because you can not understand a word they are saying. The xray was rather painless.

Now the fun begins. The Chinese must think that because your skin is white everything else must be different. It was like I was on display.

The Blood Test
Firstly I will describe the room. Lets say the waiting room of any Qld Hospital. The staff are behind the glass as if you are in a bank. You sit down in front of them and put your arm underneath the glass. They tie a piece of plastic tubing around your arm. I thought I had gone back in time. The next thing all the Chinese come shuffling over to peer at what colour your blood is. Funny that, it is the same colour as there's. You can almost hear the disappointment in their faces. I wished I had some power to change the colour of my blood!

The Medical Room
Don't worry if the Dr is with someone you just walk straight in and watch whilst you are waiting. Except when I went in 20 Chinese shufflers were with me! Now this Dr takes your pulse. Plays with your neck and pushes you in the tummy. Not quite sure what he is looking for. But he stamps the form and off I go, (with my 20 shufflers)!

The Facial room.
This Dr looks at me and decided my height and weight. He thinks I'm taller than I am and lighter than what the scales tell me. I kinda like him! He asks me about my eyes with Zhang Jie interpreting. I have no idea what the degree of blindness is. I have got my script with me but I didn't take it with me for my medical. He decides that my eyes are 4.1 vision. I've checked my script and he also thinks I can see better than I actually can. He takes my blood pressure. He gives me the thumbs up. I'm assuming that means good.

ECG
This is where I draw the line of my congo line of shufflers. I am not taking my clothes of for them to check me out. We lock them out of the room. It is absolutely freezing today in China and here I am lying top naked on a cold steel bed with archiac steel ECG equipment. I still do not think I have defrosted.

Scan
After I watch everybody else have there scans I lie down on the bed. This time I just have to pull my top up to the bottom of my bra. My Chinese shufflers are in tow, so I do my best party trick. I push my stomach out so I look pregnant. The look of horror on their faces was priceless. They shuffled out of the room. At last I was no longer on display. The gel is cold at best of times but on a freezing day in China it was like ice. The Dr doing the scan was ever so heavy handed with the scan, moving it in under my ribs.

My medical is now over. Zhang Jie goes to pay for the test. She takes it back to the place where we registered. She then goes downstairs again. She than comes back and calls me over. I have to sign it. I have absolutely no idea what I am signing but sign anyway. We can now leave the hospital.

Now Qld health can learn something from this production line I am sure. If I was at home and had to have all these tests done I am absolutley positive that it would not all happen in one day at one location. This whole experience took me 1 Hr.