Had our first opportunity to engage with the local health care system today. Received a call from the school nurse that Carolyn fell and smacked her elbow, and that she may have broken it. Ran over to school and it looked pretty swollen, and poor baby doll was looking very sad and hurt. By that point, she was starting to worry about her hair, so I suspected it wasn't too bad, but the nurse and I agreed that having an x-ray was in order. Taiwan has universal health care, and after a couple of months living here, you are allowed to apply for a National Health Card and it is supposed to cover all your health needs. As this was our first time, did not know exactly what to do, but the nurse and our cousin Sharon said we should go to Cheng Hsin General Hospital, which is about 5-10 minutes from our house and school. There is another hospital across the street that is supposed to be better, more for longer term care, but is also busier. Cheng Hsin was said to be less crowded and more foreigner friendly, which was important as it was just Carolyn and I.
A taxi dropped us off at the emergency room entrance and the first impression was it was a busy as a subway station just before rush hour. Went up to the 'take an number' counter, grabbed one, and then said to the lady behind the desk, "Yingwen?" (Chinese for 'English'). She jumped up and took us around the corner to another lady, who brought us back and took us right up to the counter (and in front of the other pile of people in the waiting area). They both helped us fill out the form, and 5 minutes later, led us to another waiting area. This one had about 10 office doors that I guess were for different ailments and they parked us in front of one that said Orthopedics. After about 15 minutes, they called our number and we went into see the doctor. He spoke enough English to get the gist of her issue and sent us over to the next building for an x-ray and told us to come back afterwards. A 5 minute walk and they took her right in for it. Then we went back to the doctors office. He called us in about 10 minutes later and we looked at the x-rays together. No breaks, just a deep bruise, wrapped it up and gave us an icing schedule for a few days. He did offer to prescribe her some pain meds, which I thought weren't needed at that point so said no, but in retrospect...NEVER SAY NO TO PAIN MEDS! 5 minute taxi ride back to school and she was back in time for lunch.
Have to give the system a big thumbs up for efficiency. Had to take Paul in for a similar situation in Seattle a few years ago, and it entailed going to the regular doctor, then getting sent over to the hospital for an x-ray, then come back the next day to get the break (wrist) put in a cast.
I should probably note at this point that I took him in two days after his initial injury not thinking it was broken. Mom was out of town and she would have taken him in immediately, but I follow the "rub some dirt on it" style of parenting. Also remember having to deal with insurance companies, bills, etc. Didn't have to pull out my wallet other than to get the health insurance card today, which was nice. I hear that the Filipina maids that come here all get the cards and have whatever work needs to be done taken care of before they go home. Not sure how this Obamacare is going to shake out, but this deal worked really well for us today. Didn't have a lot of hope it was going to be easy as we're sitting there watching the gobs of people shuffling about (Carolyn commented that they were all old people) seemingly in chaos. I'm used to hospitals that feel more like libraries and thought there was no way we're getting out of there before sunset, but they have the system down and from the time I left home and we got back to school, it was about two hours.
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