Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lawyertood]

Just got out of the hospital today following umbilical hernia surgery.

On the plus side my surgery was cheap.

But what is with the 24 hour visitation policy? What I thought would be a 6-bed room meaning 6 patients per room was actually a 12-bed room if you count the pull-out beds underneath for wives/mothers/other family members to spend the night. Made the room a bit crowded and saw some ajummas getting pretty territorial over the space around the beds.

Thankfully, being a foreigner, they were overly kind to me.

[HapKi]

Korean nurses don't do alot of the jobs one might expect them to do. Family members do them, thus are expected to be there. And yea, I had a few territorial fights over floor space, with only the dividing curtain as boundary.
Staying with my wife during her pregnancy, the eary morning wake-ups got annoying, though patients get used to the routine quickly. The worst was when church-going patients get visiting by the entire congregation. Imagine 30 ajumas shuffling through a 6 bed room, while the minister provides decimal shattering sermons rapid fire.

Congratulations on a successful recovery!!

[3baekwon]

I'm glad to hear that you're out of the hospital! Welcome back!
My husband had surgery back in August and spent a considerable amount of time there... as did I.

Korean nurses do little more than administer medicine and shots. Someone has to be there to actually take care of the patient, because they don't do it -- hence the cheap hospital stays and all of the visitors. It's a given in Korea that if you have a family member in the hospital, the family will arrange things so that someone is there all/most of the time to tend to him/her. The accident my husband was in involved lots of shattered glass. I left him that night (because I had to due to circumstances) and when I returned the following day, I saw that they had let him spend the night covered in glass. Since he was in pain, he couldn't do much for himself. They hadn't even tried to brush the visible fragments out of his hair. They hadn't supplied him with a stand for the ever-present IV bag, so he had a rough time even trying to pee - holding the IV bag in his mouth. (Upon closer inspection later, we discovered a small rusty nail over the urinal that was for the IV bag...) That was the last time I left him for any significant period of time, eventually preferring to keep him at home with me, driving him back to the hospital 3 times a day for medicine and shots.

So, long story short, the cheap hospital stays are cheap for a reason! If you have questions about that experience, you can IM me for more information.

Hope you're back to 100% soon!

[3baekwon]

While I was writing, someone else posted a response that I couldn't see... sorry about the seemingly repetitive information...

[eamo]

[lawyertood]

Good to be back, eamo, and hopefully in drinking form again soon. Brought a few bottles of Jaegermeister back from the Phils, if you're interested.

Fortunately only in the hospital for four days.....first night was put with neurology patients.....thankfully moved following my surgery....a bit too much like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for me.

No privacy curtains in the room.

Accidentally gave me the wrong pills once but I noticed they were different before taking them.....

Someone turned the light off while I was in the bathroom once...wish they put the switch on the inside!!!! Luckily I was sitting down at the time and could see the iv pole.

They need some work on the English translation of the admittance form--when referring to the hospital food it states something to the effect that it's included in the cost for patients but family members have to be paid to eat it.

[SuperHero]

Good to see you've recovered.

When you're up for it, let me know and I can return your book to you.

[eamo]

[djsmnc]

The Korean hospital experience is something else.

The best quote I heard there, the second time (since I had an infection in the surgical area ) was someone saying "Korean people don't believe in using much pain medicine after the surgery. We believe pain is part of the get better process"

The air conditioner was cut off, though it was a muggy, late spring day, to save money. The bathroom looked like my high school's bathroom without grafitti, as in off-green walls covered with a thin layer of yellow body fluids accumulated over years of use.

Shared rooms can be a nightmare, and it almost would have been worth it to throw an extra 300,000 for a single room.

Anyhow, just another part of the Korean experience...

[Ilsanman]

I posted a while back about my hospital stays.

Yes, they do get territorial. It's ajummaism, not giving a flying crap about anyone else except yourself and your own kid.

At least in my mind, no guest, no matter who he/she is, has any business making a patient uncomfortable. The hospital is for patients first and foremost.

[Panic Button]

On a different subject, PM, the fibres of the item of clothing your blades badge is pinned to look suspiciously like that of a Stone Island top.

BBC?

[periwinkle]

I heard the Yonsei Univ. hospital has a foreigner wing if anyone doesn't want to deal with the typical hospital experience, although I don't know how much better it is. You can get a private room, as well.

I wonder how much "nurses" are paid, and what their training is. If someone tried to give me the wrong medicine, I would have a fit. I guess literally, you could have a fit if they give you the wrong meds and you are allergic to it (or something along those lines).

I figure if I get sick, I'm on the next flight to Guam.

[Swiss James]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

My friend was in the hospital for around ten days. The best part was being able to bring him beer and get drunk together while puffing away on cigarettes on the bench by the stairwell just outside his room. In how many other countries could you set up your own little hof in the hospital stairwell?

I was there once at feeding time and as for the food, imagine the worst school cafeteria lunch you've had, half-sized, three times a day.

[Panic Button]