Thursday, December 31, 2015

Going to the Hospital in Taiwan

Anne Marie's had a cough for the past two weeks. We've been avoiding going to the doctor because we don't have Taiwan healthcare until June and we were hoping it would just go away. This past week it began to get worse, to the point were she wasn't feeling up to going to school. We finally decided to make the trip. When we got to the hospital we weren't sure if we were in the right place but a lady helped us find the right department and get registered.

Within fifteen minutes we were already in the doctors office having Anne Marie evaluated. It turned out that she had bronchitis due to the air pollution here. There are many factories here as well as so many scooters that cause the air quality to be very poor. Anne Marie and I usually wear surgical masks anytime we go out. The doctor told us that the pollution in China is a problem too because the wind carries it over here to Taiwan. When Anne Marie asked what she needed to do so that it wouldn't continue to be a health problem, he told her, "Just get used to it like the rest of us!"

After the doctor wrote Anne Marie's prescription, we went back to the front desk to pay our bill. We weren't sure how much it would be. The total cost of the hospital visit which included registration, seeing the doctor, and the prescriptions, was $28USD! Within the next ten minutes we had our prescriptions in hand. In all, the entire process took us only about forty-five minutes.

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