Good hospital/doctor near Wudaokou

[BertR]

Can somebody advice me a good hospital near Wudaokou. My girlfriend is having a high temperature, heavy headaches and stomachaches. She was not really fond about going to a Chinese hospital/doctor, but since it is already a couple of days and it doesn't seem to improve we'd better look for one.

Does somebody has some advice? They preferable should speak English.

[roddy]

The nearest I can think of would be the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital, which has a foreigner's wing. It's not exactly close, just the closest I can think of.

Assuming you're at a university, there should be a clinic or something on campus - might not be particularly fun, but would be closer and cheaper. They'll likely drag some poorly English major out of sickbed to translate for you.

[elranchero41]

Why don't you try the one by the BLCU west gate one?They dont speak english but you can even use body lang to describe.

[tboasis7]

If you have insurance that has international coverage, surely there is a website associated with your insurance company that could provide you with some options.

Hope that helps

[Kenny同志]

Roddy, I'd like to 请教. What is a foreinger's wing? Thank you!

[skylee]

What is a foreinger's wing?

I don't know that foreigners have wings. But a wing of a building refers to a part of a building, or a block of a building complex, and is usually translated to 翼 in Hong Kong, eg West Wing is西翼. I would think that a foreinger's wing in a hospital is the part of the hospital which deals with non-Chinese patients (e.g. with medical staff who can speak foreign languages to deal with foreign patients. etc).

Obviously I am not roddy. And my apologies in advance if I have misunderstood the question.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks Skylee. That seems to make sense.

[BertR]

Thank you for your replies.

Maybe people here are interested in our experience.

We ended up going to "Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital". The east-side entrance is the international entrance, but there they asked what it was for and directed us to the south entrance when she heard 发烧 (the woman at the reception didn't really speak English very well). The south entrance looked more like a make-shift building and there they couldn't speak any English at all (the girl seemed even excited that they had foreign patients).

The main reason we wanted an English-speaking hospital is that my girlfriend has had allergic reactions on some medicines. First we needed to fill in a form. Then we could enter another building, register there (and pay 5 Renminbi), wait in a line to see the doctor, see the doctor for 10 seconds. The doctor tells us that my girlfriend has to have her blood taken (this seems to be the standard procedure), but first go back to the place where we registered and pay to have the blood taken, queue to have the blood taken, have the blood taken, wait for the results, wait to see the doctor. The doctor asks some basic questions.

My girlfriend didn't seem to be at ease at all so I asked the doctor whether he could speak English, which he said he could, so I asked him whether he could continue in English. When he asked whether my girlfriend was allergic to certain medicine, my girlfriend replied with what she thought was the English term for the kind of medicine for which she is allergic, but this didn't ring a bell for the doctor (we are both native Dutch-speaking, so it might be that the terminology was incorrect).

In the end we got western medicine to lower the temperature and also some Chinese medicine (for which we actually don't know the purpose) after first going back to the place where we registered to pay for the medicine. The whole process went rather quickly, we saw many Chinese people going through the same process, but no foreigners.

My girlfriend seems to be already much better now.

[roddy]

Glad she's better. What might have happened is that you got directed to some kind of 'fever clinic' - these were set up during SARS to keep potential SARS patients away from the rest of the hospital.

@kenny, Skylee has already answered. Foreigners wing is perhaps not really the right term as they'll quite happily treat Chinese people willing to pay the extra, but a few hospitals in Beijing (协和 and 中日友好医院 at least) have sections which are pricier, have some degree of English language service and allegedly offer better service.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks for confirming this.

[skylee]

It seems that hospitals in China tend to recommend injections and blood taking ...

I have only been to a Chinese hospital once, in Lijiang because of altitude sickness (surprise). The doctor said I should get an injection but I declined. I was not afraid of needles but was very concerned about hygiene .... So I got some Chinese medicine instead, and did get better after taking it (but I am not sure if it was the medicine or that I had gradually gotten used to the place).