Hospital excercises

The last 3 days we've been to one of the private hospitals/clinics here in Yangon. This place is fairly well known and not very far from our place.

The first time we went, I wanted all three kids to see the doctor. Eaindra has a diaper rash that is rather persistent, I wanted to know if Xenne needed his next vaccination, and Thandar is literally tongue-tied.

I'd been to this place before and in general I rated it as quite good. It is new, clean, and at those times the doctors were knowledgeable and efficient.

This time the waiting room was so full I wondered if we would ever make it before lunch -time (we came in at about 10). All three kids were checked by the nurses of which there must have been at least 5 in the room. Then we went for a sort of screening by a doctor who just wrote down in the booklets why we were there and then we could return to our wait.

3 hours later we were finally in the doctor's office. It was liking being in a factory. While he was dictating to 2 staff members (one in front of his table and one on the side) about the patient who he just examined, the next patient was led to a chair next to him. He then turned his attention to us (being the next patients) and started to talk to me about Eaindra, Xenne, and Thandar. Like most doctors, his english was very good so there was no problem of communication. While he was busy with us, the next patient was ushered into the room already. I have been in that office twice this week and I think that on average there are at least 10 people in there.

He did ask me some strange questions about Eiandra I thought, like whether she gets a bath regularly and things like that. But that might just be something to do with experience on his side...  Xenne and Eaindra were sorted quickly and for Thandar we needed to make an appointment for a hearing test.

The hearing test was yesterday and that was all fine. Luckily. The facilities were good and the waiting time was not very long. When we came down again though I wanted to make an appointment for her to have that tongue tie cut and the follow up of a meeting with the speech therapist. The reception wouldn't budge, I had to see the same doctor again.

So this morning back to the hospital. We were number 19 on the waiting list. We had to go through the hoops again of nurse's room with the measurements of temperature, blood pressure and so on and the screening doctor. Then we settled in for a wait. Again. We arrived at 9 and at just before 10 we saw the doctor we came to see only for him to ask us why we came to him since he would only refer us to someone else. I told him I tried but the reception wouldn't budge. He showed me why. In the booklet the doctor who had done the hearing test had referred us back. And that was the only thing those ladies had looked for...  Thinking skills are not necessarily involved. He apologized though for the time wasted.

So, later today we have to go again. And I'll give you updates on how we're progressing..

Every time we come into that hospital, we have to pay 1,000 ks (about $1.20) to just be allowed to wait. Or so it feels like. It might be that we pay the money for another reason but I haven't been able to come up with one yet.