Job Discussion Forums

[kacoy]

Hello. I am a 45 year old man with a Bachelor of Science degree. I've been tutoring english under the auspices of the Literacy Unlimited Program in Massachusetts. For a few years now I've been considering teaching English and English pronunciation to students intermediate and advanced students. I have two obstacles. The first is that I would have a small but non-trivial continuing financial commitment where I live now. I believe I would have to make on the minimum of 7500 RMB to pay my expenses back here and still have some spending money there. This is not my worst obstacle.
My second obstacle is that I have a kidney transpalnt. This means that I have a heightened vulnerability to transmitted diseases. This does not worry me. We all have to go sometime and I'd prefer to go doing something that I believe is important.
What is of concern to me is the 5 prescription drugs (Azathioprine 50 mg tablets,prednisone 10 mg tablets, lipitor 20 mg tablets, lisinopril 5 mg tablets, and levothyroxine125 mcg tablets) that I am required to take every day for the rest of my life. Also it is desirable for milk to be available. These medications are easily available at most american pharmacies but I need to know whether they will be available at (preferably) mainland chinese pharmacies. Many listings mention health coverage or insurance but do not go into detail. Have other people with transplants or other prescription needs taught in China and if so what is the availablity of these medications? I am also willing to consider Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea as alternates in that order. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Joseph Kacoyannakis

[gordogringo]

You should have no problems getting the meds. in China if you are near a major city.I might suggest making a trip to Canada or ordering online to purchase a few months supply at reasonable prices.I have had no problems when working in China and Taiwan.As I have always used Las Vegas as my US homebase I often went to Mexico and purchased several months supply of my meds just to be safe but never had trouble finding them overseas.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[Don McChesney]

Milk seems to be easily available in China, UHT milk, that is, so it doesn't need to be refrigerated in the shops, and yogurt is cheap to buy.
Medications are a problem, as many are only available from the hospitals, and they charge plenty for them. Routine meds are in most pharmacies, but not the exotics. Also of course the stuff is written in Chinese on the packets, so you do need to be very clear what you need.
In your favour, most largish cities have transplant units, so they are very comfortable with the problem, but may use different drugs to the ones you are used to.
In fact some of the medications used in hospitals have not been cleared for use by other countries!! Some meds are manufactured locally, which may be suspect, but I believe they are OK, after all, the doctors want their patients to live and keep on needing services.
You will need travel insurance for the whole trip, in case you need repatriation for some reason, ie the blood in China is definitely not on.

[zhamr]

I looked up your medications in Chinese and found the following website, which contained descriptions of each item: www.chinapharm.com.cn. This would seem to imply pre-existing knowledge of your medications in China and therefore potentially would also suggest availability. Knowledge of the Chinese name of each tablet would be essential.

There is an English language function on the website.

[kacoy]

Thank you all for your input