MEDICAL EMERGENCIES
By Dr. Peggy Lu
Ten years ago I worked in a small clinic for expatriates here in Guangzhou. The clinic was a two-room suite located on the 8th floor of a big teaching hospital building. I had to rely on hospital support facilities such as pathology and x-rays. One day a middle-aged man walked in with an intense chest pain. I took him down to the emergency room on the first floor of the same building, for an urgent ECG (EKG). My patient was made to wait for forty minutes, as ‘he did not look sick enough’. Of course when you are in an ER hall filled with stretchers with sick or very sick people, you just do not get the attention you deserve if you are still walking and talking. Adding to the distress, I had to queue twice for registration and payment before an ECG could be done.
Things have changed for the better over the years and the standard of the emergency medical response system nowadays in Guangzhou, is much closer to our expectations. Thanks to the SARS epidemic in Guangzhou, the ambulance system received an enormous upgrade. The ambulance headquarters (telephone number ‘120’) is located behind the GITIC tower on Huanshi Dong Road and has a big fleet of imported ambulances equipped with defibrillators and oxygen systems, and ringing ‘120’ can also mobilise ambulances from the nearest hospital to the patient. The usual response time is 10-20 minutes. I have rung ‘120’ several times lately and am very pleased with their assistance. Let me share with you a recent story.
Several months ago, I was woken up by a phone call at 6.45am. A young lady from Ersha Island had rung - her 70-year old father who was here visiting had just collapsed during his morning yoga exercise. He was unresponsive. It sounded like a case of massive stroke.
After getting her residential address, I told her that I would order an ambulance to her residence. I quickly dialled ‘120’ and gave details of the case (name, address and telephone number). Ten minutes later the ambulance arrived from the Ersha TCM Hospital to her residence. When I reached the patient’s side twenty minutes after the initial phone call, the patient had already been examined by the ambulance doctor, and transferred onto a stretcher, ready to be taken to the hospital. The ambulance doctor too believed that this was a case of massive stroke.
The ambulance doctor and I quickly exchanged notes. There is a ‘fast track’ system for stroke and heart attack patients in the main TCM hospital in Da De Road. If indeed this was a stroke patient, it would be of utmost importance that we establish the diagnosis within a couple of hours so medications can be given to unblock the artery inside the brain. Damage would be irreversible if the delay is past six hours for such treatment.
We arrived at the Da De Road TCM hospital twenty minutes later. Within thirty minutes the patient had been seen by two ER doctors and a neurologist. The hospital ER cashier accepted credit cards for payment, which made things much easier (again, no money, no treatment). By 9.00am, the patient was taken for a CAT (CT) scan to confirm the stroke. Soon after that he was given medicine to salvage his brain.
This patient stayed at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for several weeks and was able to return home to India. Recently I had an update from his much relieved daughter – which is he is well and active and without any paralysis that is usually expected from stroke victims.
How should you handle medical matters in Guangzhou?
Here are a few tips:
- Do choose a family doctor who speaks your language and understands your needs for your day-to-day medical problems
- Do speak to your family doctor regarding emergency assistance. Some clinics offer 24-hour assistance, either by telephone, clinic visit or house calls.
- For matters that are larger than what your family doctor can handle, do what the lady in this story did - call your family doctor and call for an ambulance (or go straight to the ER). At the same time you should call a Chinese speaking friend to assist.
- Your family doctor or your clinic is NOT your ‘911 emergency centre’ – be realistic.
- Know your neighbourhood and find out which hospital is near you for medical emergencies. For example: The Nanfang Military Hospital for Golden Lake and Castle Hill areas; Ersha TCM for Ersha Island residents; Provincial Hospital or Zhongshan No.1 Hospital for Tianhe residents, etc.
- Your housing estate management desk can be a big help in sourcing medical assistance and it would be wise to make sure they know how to handle crises such as medical emergency, crime and fire.
- Be positive – You choose to live in this city of China, so you need to accept the local medical facility. The level of medical care here still has a long way to go, but it is already much better than it used to be!