Job Discussion Forums

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Fax your temperature in to the office? why not the PSB?
Who installed the fax machine?

I got stopped at the gate of our school today. I thought I must have broken some important regulation. But now, the head mistress put her hand to my forehead, the she nodded.
"no, you have no fever! You can go in!"
If I had had fever I would have known long before as any rise in my temperature makes me extremely uncomfortable.
But the use of her hand as a thermometer was a bit new to me!

Why had nbobody told me about taking one's body temperature? One more typical case of negligent handling of information, forgetting the odd foreign teacher at the school.
Oh no, there are two of us. The other person was not checked at all when he came an hour later.

MartinK · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 344

Egas · Guest

It's fine by me if the women at the gate touch me, as long as I can touch them back. Wink

Seriously, seems more of a health risk in itself. What's next, body cavity searches?

MartinK · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 344

taiwan boy · Joined: 11 Feb 2003 Posts: 99 Location: China

At the company I work at in Fujian Province all workers (over 1,000 people) have their temperature checked every morning (starting yesterday). They use the thermometers that they stick in your ear. Anyone clocking up 38 degrees gets a free trip to the hospital.

yaco · Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Posts: 473

I find the lack of consistency when taking action to stop the onset of SARS totally confusing.

I teach in a vocational college with 6000 students in Jiangsu Province.

The school is taking the temperature of all students twice per day but not of any teachers, administrative staff or associated workers.

I explained to the Dean of the Deapartment that everyone should be treated equally in dealing with this issue.

All I received was a ' look of bewilderment.'

Possibly the authorities don't have enough experience or common sense when dealing with these issues.

hubei_canuk · Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Posts: 240 Location: hubei china

Really Yako!!
Are you crazy?
You WANT your temperature taken?!!
You have a high temperature and you are off to a sars-infested CHINESE hopital with a ..what? 50 percent chance or less of coming back.
...
Have you ever seen a Chinese hospital?
Anyone tries to take my temperature i will run to the hills (they are right out my backdoor and come back when it's all over.
And i carry a beltknife to make sure no one will stop me.
..
Think that one over!

kathleen · Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Posts: 38 Location: Nanjing

I just want to echo that sentiment. I am taking every reasonable precaution here in Nanjing, where we just had our first official case reported, a business man who flew back from Beijing. I guess that means the airport is contaminated now and some of the passengers and staff on his flight have been exposed.

Our students can't leave the campus overnight but they can come and go during the day. People who don't work here can't come in, unless we go to the gate to receive them with our IDs. I come and go freely, the guards know me. I'm still teaching my basic contract classes but all my extra ones, IELTS training, adult conversation, etc. have been canceled because we can't control where those people have been or with whom they have been in contact.

Nevertheless, an American business man I know just went to the Canton trade fair and then flew into Nanjing on Tuesday of this week. His temp was not checked before boarding in Guandong, no one wore masks on the plane, and he just walked off into greater Nanjing with no inspection whatsoever.

I politely refused to have lunch with him and he was a bit insulted but hey, I am trying to be consistent about my own behavior. This guy may have SARS and not know it for another week. Meanwhile he is walking around Nanjing....

I have just proposed to my waiban that I teach extra classes for the next 3 weeks and then leave at the end of May. Don't know if I will be refused. I think it is a reasonable compromise, considering that I may very well get thrown into quarantine for up to 14 days upon my arrival back in the states. Sad

Hamish · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 333 Location: PRC

hubei_canuk · Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Posts: 240 Location: hubei china

Hamish, you are pretty lucky there.
Some hospitals may be ok, and in some regions.
Some treatment may be ok in all hospitals.
I know that even in the interior some services are better than the West. It depends what's wrong with you.
However the following is generally true for the interior:
--------------------------------------------------------
I've been to the hospitals in Wuhan, Hunan and Henan. All the interior. Most alll very bad. Doctors mostly incompetent. I would consider them as morgues or scenes from a Kafka novel. If its something simple and straightforward then you can get treatment.
...
You are all teachers here: familiar with Chinese "face" So you know how the chinese mind and analytical ability is destroyed by the time they reach high school. Imagine that multiplied 10,000 times and turned into a doctor 5 years later after high school!!!!!!!
You don't "have a doctor" in a chinese hospital. Their prime concern is to write in a book and pass the book on to someone else. Eventually you get passed on to some student who does some isolated treatment but not ccomprehensive understanding or follow-up.
Chinese patients never ask the doctrs questions or ask them for the explanations or the rational questions we westerners ask. The doctors are never intellectually challenged in this way. They aren't "working guys" in the same way western doctors are. They are more like "king of the hill" dispensing wisdom and medicine to the masses. Never ask them a question and expect any sense. They are quite unused to being asking practical questions or keeping track of a course of treatment.
..
At a dental hospital the doc told me the tooth that was infected was another tooth, not the one i knew was infected. He even didn't want to bother with an x-ray! I forced the issue and WHOOPS! i was right after all. God! whas he going to do a root canal on a healthy tooth??!!!
.....
If you have a broken bone, they'll never set the bone correctly. They don't understand it and they are afraid of any responsibility. So people are crippled for the sake of simple fractures.
The docot's main concern is prescribing medicine and "traditional herbs" because this is the only way to supplement their salary: to get you to buy medicine at the hospital dispensary. Also they will also recommend more "tests", expensive tests MRI, CT, X-rays etc .. stuff up to 600 or 1000's of yuan because they can make money. But the only result of these tests or tratment therein will be to buy more medicine! Rolling Eyes

..
Everything is money. Even the chinese don't trust them, what they say , nor why they do things. My chinese friends have many stories of people who just needed something simple but ended up dead the next day for lack of proper treatment.
..
Oh! and my favorite is that they alway invite you to stay at the hopital.
Reason: It's 500 yuan a day.
They suggest it at every opportunity. A friend did have pnuemonia. The hospital conditions were worse than her apartment and it was cold there, They wanted 50 yuan a day extra for air-con.
Once, with a bone problem they suggested i "stay at the hospital"!!
I was astounded! Why? I asked?
"Because it's convenient." they said.! Laughing

---------------
(No Hamish, Sergeant Jesus was already an NCO by the time i got to China.)

hubei_canuk · Joined: 20 Apr 2003 Posts: 240 Location: hubei china

Here's a horrifying account of a foreignerigner in Harbin ordered to go to a chinese hospital when he had a fever.
Of course he was a total fool for telling his waiban he had a fever. And even more a fool to open his door or go to the hospital. He needed rest in bed, which he didn't get.
..
Vindication. Stay away from chinese hospital. Read the description of what went on there.
--------------------------
http://europa.your-site.com/~bokane/

http://www.sarswatch.org/comments.php?id=187_0_1_0_C
http://www.sars.ws/

Hamish · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 333 Location: PRC

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

What are you comparing Chinese hospitals to? Inner city hospitals in America? Like Hamish said, have you been there? Overcrowded, not the nicest places And unless you are rich, what is the chance that you will get an American doctor. I think there are some hospitals in China that practice poor isolation procedures compared to the west. Overall I do feel American hospitals are better, but I do have respect for the training the average Chinese doctor gets. Like in AMerica, he often gets little say about how to practice the medicine. I America Insurance companies and lawsuits run the show, here the Party and fear tend to run the show.

I have no problem with the hospital in Zhengzhou I go to. And I have more confidence in the doctors at that hospital then in my Pakistanian doctor back home in my American hospital. The tooth care I received here has been excellent. That said, yeah there are some bad hospitals here, mostly due to lack of money, not so much intelligence. I make them put out their cigarettes.

I still love when I asked my FAO which hospital I should go to. She gave me the name of one. I asked, "Is this the hospital you would go to if you were sick?" She said, "I'd never go to that hospital" Life is rich. She than gave me the name of the local teaching hospital, which is not terrible.

I try to avoid all hospitals. Lots of people get sick there. Prisons and hospitals. Try to avoid them both for a good , long, healthy life Wink

yaco · Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Posts: 473

Dear Hubei Canuk

You miss the whole point of my argument. If we are to stop the onset of SARS every student or employee of the school should take the same precautions.

Why should I ( a foreign teacher ), as an employee of the school be treated differently to anyone else.

At my college all the Chinese teachers live off campus often in very crowded living environments. Even if the school stopped students or foreign teachers leaving campus ( heaven forbid ) you still have other employees who do not accommodation on campus.

The authorities are taking prudent steps to contain SARS , although I suggested in my post , I was concerned about the College's processes in dealing with the SARS issue.

This is the school who has changed the curfew from 11.00pm to 9.30pm. Maybe they consider you only catch SARS between 9.30pm and 11.00pm.

If you have read previous posts by myself, you will recall my absolute disgust at the spitting incidents at the hospital during my medical examination. I can assure you I have no great desire to stay in a Chinese hospital.

To the other writers the comparison between Chinese hospitals and Americans hospitals was enlightening but not really relevant to my post.

PS; Got the face masks today.