Free Exam Offered for Poison Milk Victims

Yifan got a little bit fever, and we brought him to the Shanghai Children Medical Center. We have already tried the local small clinic called Anda Hospital – the place within walking distance from our home, but they were on holiday, and we went to the Becai Community Medical Center – they were on holiday too. We have to take our last choice, the one we really don’t want to bring Yifan to – the Shanghai Children Medical Center. We don’t want to bring Yifan there because it is really a refugee for children. Today, Yifan’s grandfather went there early this morning, and got a ticket with #608 in the queue, and he came back. We drive there about 2 PM in the afternoon, and we arrived just on time. They just past the ticket No. 600. So, practically speaking, you have to wait for 4-6 hours to get your child to see a doctor for 2 minutes. Anyway, this is not news. They are always like this. The conclusion I got was, with the increase of GDP, tax dollars the government collect from all kinds of activities, and the increase of demand for people to get health care, the supply of hospital and other medical resources just kept unchanged. That is a big problem for the current system.

The Free Exam for Poison Milk Victim Children

Something new I saw this time was about a special area, and process to handle the victim children of the poison milk. There are many places you can get aware of it.

Poster

The first is the poster everywhere telling people what to do. They listed all the symptoms of the affected children, and procedures to get the free exam. They rest assured anxious parents that by drinking a lot of water, stones in kidney smaller than 4mm that are not solid enough will run out of the body. Bigger one will be handled by the hospital.

Pre-exam Counter

The second place is a “pre-exam” counter at the entrance of the hospital. They have banner with the following message:

“Problematic Milk” Pre-Exam

They have a form on the table that parents can fill in.

I asked them that my child didn’t drink the “problematic milk” that were reported, but I am still not sure. They offered pretty good answer, and suggested that if I want, just bring Yifan to the clinic for a free and quick B-ray scan of the body. It seems every child, no matter what history is, can go in and do the exam immediately, for free.

I finally decided not to take the exam. Something I learned was, hospital in China is one of the most dangerous place to be, and I don’t want to risk Yifan’s health to take any unnecessary exam.

The Special Area for the Exam

Immediately after the registry counter are a special area with large banner: “Problematic Milk Children Exam” (I just did the word by word direct translation). There is a safe guard sitting there to maintain order. There are not many people there. During the several minutes I was there, I only saw one child went into the clinic, and two out of it.

Only Comparable to SARS

That is what I observed so far. This special treatment is comparable to SARS period – I mean by the terms of the amount of resources hospitals put into this. Let’s see how it developers.

P.S. I still don’t have too much to say about this whole event. I think the only value I can add besides the piles of articles and comments on this is to provide some first hand information about the event to my readers who cares about it.

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