醫院 Hospital

People always rave about how excellent the health system in Taiwan is. Last year I (unfortunately) had to experience it first hand - well pretty much as the patient was my Other Half.
很多人常說臺灣醫療制度很棒，去年終於（不幸地）體驗到，或正確來說應是我另一半 OH 親身經歷。

OH woke up one morning with acute pain and couldn't even walk to the front door so I had to call an ambulance to take him to A&E. We were treated immediately which is quite a contrast to the UK NHS when sometimes you have to wait for quite a while if your condition isn't urgent. But then OH was clearly in a lot of pain and there weren't any other patients around at 8am in the morning.

當天OH 醒來時身體極痛楚，連走路也不能於是我立即請救護車送他到醫院。到達急診後，醫護人員馬上替他檢查。我當時想，如果在英國公立醫院若非緊急，大概還要等上一大段時間才可以診察吧。但其實當時OH 真的非常痛楚，加上早上八時多急診很少其他病人，可能這個原因所以不用等。

After a couple of pain killer injections (which incidentally relieved his toothache as well), a CT scan, and an IVP (that's where they inject special dye in your veins to take X rays of the urinary system) he was diagnosed with having a stone in his system. They offered to remove the stone for him in the afternoon so he opted for the non invasive method of SWL, using high frequency sound waves from outside the body to fragment the stone. It was lunchtime by now, and OH was totally exhausted due to the lingering pain, lack of food (his last meal was over 17 hours ago) plus the fact that we had only just come back from Japan the evening before. Luckily we only had to wait for another half an hour more for the staff to return from their lunch break to conduct the treatment.

打過兩支止痛針後（連原本有點牙痛也不再痛），又照斷層掃描及靜脈注射腎盂（即注射顯影劑檢查尿路系統）醫生很快就診斷OH 有結石。他建議可在下午處理，於是 OH 就選擇較為簡單的體外震波碎石術。在這時侯已是中午，OH 已超過17小時末有進食，加上整個早上極痛楚及我們剛在之前一晚才從日本回來，他整個人巳經筋皮力盡。幸好只要再多等半小時，醫護人員午飯後他就可以脫離苦海。

In the UK, we would probably have to wait for the NHS to schedule the SWL treatment at a later date. But here in Taiwan we were totally self funding so I don't know if that made a difference in the speed of treatment. Or is the entire medical treatment here so efficient that regardless of your status, you will always receive full treatment on the same day? The main thing is that the problem was resolved efficiently, and by 4pm we were able to go and OH could have some rest.

在英國醫療系統下，我相信這個震波碎石術可能需要再排期等一段時間才可以進行。但我們在臺灣是全自費，不知會否因為這個原因所以這麼快？還是臺灣整個健保系統都如此高效率，全部病人都可以在同一天內完成所有手術呢？無論如何，病情當天已處理好，到下午4點多我們已經回家，而OH也可以好好休息。

Amidst the panic and worry in the morning , I wrote OH's Chinese name incorrectly during registration. Despite his pain, he still noticed that and managed to protest that although we've been married for a long long time I still can't write his name correctly! So I'm starting to wonder was he really in that much pain ??!!

還有一件小插曲，早上替OH 登記時，因為擔心及焦急寫錯他的名字。廣東話文跟民發音是一樣，所以我把文寫錯變民。OH 在極痛苦下都注意到，還抱怨幾聲說我倆結婚多年我還寫錯他的名字！我真有一點懷疑，究竟他是否真的那麼痛楚呢 ??!!