This post also appears (or will appear) on Silicon Valley Moms Blog.
I had previously blogged about going to a state-run Chinese children’s hospital (you can read it here, but be forewarned that it’s a bit of a bitch-log). After that trip half way to hell I never wanted to take the kids to a Chinese hospital again. However, Jojo’s most recent bout of eczema was so bad that I decided to bite the bullet and take him to see a doctor once more. Unfortunately, there isn’t a very good pediatrician in any of the expat clinics. Fortunately, Beijing Children’s Hospital opened a new affiliate hospital where all the doctors are Chinese but the facilities, the standards, and especially the prices are western. When I called to make an appointment, the receptionist emphasized that not only are the prices higher, but that they are several times higher than those at the regular hospital, and that I needed to put down a $300 deposit from which fees were to be deducted. I readily agreed as I didn’t want to find myself navigating through crowds in the sweltering heat holding an infant again, like I did at the other children’s hospital.
We drove for an hour and half through the rain across the city of Beijing to get to the hospital, cutting through Tiananmen Square along the way, where celebrations were being prepared as we were exactly a year away from the opening of the 08 summer Olympics. Beijing has always been a large sprawling city, and with such impressive economic growth in recent years, the number of cars on the road seems to have exploded exponentially; you can expect traffic on every major road. For such a large city, there are very few children’s hospitals—I only know of two. Most Chinese kids don’t see a regular pediatrician; if they get truly ill, they have to be taken to one of the children’s hospitals. Depending on where they live, it could be a long and arduous trip. I don’t know what parents here do for emergencies where every second matters, but I have little doubt that many children probably die because of delays in getting to an emergency room at a reputable hospital. When you have so many people in a country, the value of life just doesn’t seem to mean as much. I daren’t think about what would happen should Juju or Jojo get injured or seriously ill. It’s no wonder that we miss nothing more than we miss Dr. V and her staff at Welch Road Pediatrics.
Upon entering the hospital, I was relieved to find it clean and free of crowds and the staff courteous and attentive. At the regular hospital one can expect to wait at least an hour or two to see an expert, and that is if one gets there early enough to be included on the list to be seen at all that day--you can't make appointments ahead of time. At the new hospital, we were immediately taken to the waiting area where a nurse registered us and asked to weigh Jojo, my almost six-month-old son. She led us to a scale, and for a moment I was confused, as the scale was obviously used to weigh adults. She ushered both of us onto the scale, took the reading, then took Jojo from me, and took my weight: the difference between the two was registered as Jojo’s weight.
To sidetrack a bit, stepping on a scale in front of a total stranger at six months post partum was not one of my prouder moments. At a little over 130 lbs, I place squarely amongst the top quartile of Chinese women who are my height and age, even though I’m of average weight in the US. When I go shopping for clothes, I always ask for sizes XXL and up, and even then I sometimes find myself bursting out of the seams, especially at the bust. When I go with my mom, she’ll often call out to the salesgirls in her distance-carrying voice, “Bring out your biggest sizes for my daughter!” When I find myself having trouble yet again stuffing my boobs into a shirt obviously made for those with a Kate Moss physique, my mom usually explains obligatorily, “She’s only fat because she’s had a baby recently and she’s still breastfeeding.” At which point the salesgirl, often with a look of relief on her face, will reassure me by saying, “Don’t worry, you won’t remain this fat after you wean.” Moral of the story: first of all, Chinese people are thin in general; second, as such, it’s really no fun to be even slightly overweight here, as people have no qualms pointing it out to you. But I digress.
The pediatric dermatological specialist, a friendly grandma type, told us that day in and day out she sees children with eczema, the majority of whom are from industrialized places such as US and Europe. One interesting point of note was that she told me to just wean cold turkey and put the baby on hypoallergenic formula, as “breastmilk is as nutritious as water after six months post-partum”. I was dubious about that statement as I’d always been told differently in the US. However, remembering how Chinese doctors disliked being questioned, I suppressed my skepticism and asked tentatively, “how come US pediatricians always tell us to breastfeed until the child reaches one or sometimes even two years of age?” She gave a dismissive wave to my question and said, “The US is a much more humane society than ours and they don’t force-wean their children, but that’s not applicable in our country, especially since you are going back to work next month.” I remained silent because, really, what can you say to that?
Before we wrapped up our visit, we went to the gift shop to buy the hypoallergenic formula the doctor recommended. At $50 for a can which was at most a four-day supply of formula, Neocate, the only hypoallergenic formula available in Beijing and probably all of China, was prohibitively expensive for even most urban Chinese families, whose average monthly income was no more than $1,000. I asked Auntie, my nanny, how an average Chinese family would manage if their child wasn’t breastfed and couldn’t tolerate cow milk protein, and Auntie said that in those cases the child had to subsist only on rice porridge, fruits and vegetables. Ironically, many of the poorest Chinese children aren’t breastfed because their mothers have to go back to work right away to make ends meet. Once again I was overcome with sadness for the children.
Our doctor’s visit took us four hours and even with a dedicated driver and a nanny to accompany me, I was exhausted. We must to trek over once again in three days for a return visit. Still, I can’t complain because we are so much more fortunate than so many people, especially those in third-world countries. Living in Silicon Valley over the years made me feel entitled to the comforts and conveniences typical of upscale US cities, and my experiences in China keep reminding me just how lucky I am.
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