Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gregmurphy02139]

My girlfriend was just admitted to a hospital in Guri, pretty far outside Seoul. She had surgery to fix a broken fibula.

When I went to visit her for the first time last night I found her crying in excruciating pain. She had been like that for five hours, lying in a room with a half dozen dying old people and no nurse on staff. On top of that she had undergone the operation while awake with only a local anesthetic. Afterwards they would only give her an Asprin-like pain remedy for pain management.

I had to haggle and argue with the nurse, talk to my boss who then called the doctor before they finally gave her a morphine-like drug. Even this barely covers the pain.

In the US she would have been given enough drugs to kill a horse after a procedure as invasive as this. What's the deal? Is there such a fear of drug dependency in this county that they're willing to put patients through torture? Or is this just simply a fucked up hospital?

[young_clinton]

Looks like your girlfriend hit the jackpot. I wouldn't want to go to that hospital for sure. The small clinic I went to gave me antinausea drugs as soon as i started lying down on the benches. I think the best hospital to go to, if at all possible, is Samsung in Seoul. Its the best hospital in Seoul, and not real expensive either especially if you have insurance. It's part of a hospital network that includes Cedar Sinai in California.

[crescent]

[air76]

Same thing happened to us, but at least my girlfriend was out for her surgery. Luckily we had a crazy friend who had had a similar surgery and had already figured out how to get the better drugs. He simply called up the doctor and threatened to kill him. That is no joke, and if you knew this guy, you wouldn't want to find out if he was serious or not.

So yeah, they tried to give her ibuprofen for her broken arm and so our buddy made a phone call and sure enough, 5 minutes later we can the oxycontin

Korean hospitals are terrible. The surgeons are good, but everything else about the hospitals are terrible. You get what you pay for in Korea.

[AsiaESLbound]

There seems to be a lack of empathy and care for those we do not work with or in relation to. It's gross how inconsiderate strangers can be in spite of how obvious other people's needs are. When you want or need something, you have to tell them exactly what to do even though it's obvious what needed attention.

[warmachinenkorea]

My wife had to go to the emergency room one Saturday for major stomach pain. While she didn't have much done to her I watched many Korean people be treated very differently than we would do back in The States.

An old lady, who sounded like a goat having it's throat cut, was on a bed for eveyone to see with her shirt raised and breasts exposed for hours with no one attending to her.

An old man came in and he looked like he was dieing was just put to the side while his son wept and wept while holding his hand. They could have given him some privacy.

The worst though was the old man who was completly naked with a catheter in his goob making all kinda noises while 5 doctors just stood and watched as he thrashed around on the table. They didn't even pull a curtain for privacy.

This is in a hospital in Daegu that is designated for the US military and has an international clinic. But this was in the ER.