The Doctor is IN

and the patients are insane

Healthcare in modern China is a mish-mash of TCM, folklore, hypochondria, reflexology, acupuncture and occasionally a cargo-cult emulation of Western-style medicine. The majority of health services are provided at hospitals operated by city governments and do actually follow the Western allopathic model for the most part. But private clinics and practitioners also abound, and there’s no guarantee that diagnosis and treatment will follow conventional medical practices.

My earliest exposure to the system occurred when my employer, complaining of fatigue and lack of energy, was advised by a doctor to eat dog as a solution. This 老板 laoban boss invited me to join him for lunch shortly thereafter and explained that while all dog meat provides therapeutic benefit, black dog in particular is considered most auspicious. Yes, I tried a very small bite when offered (after all, the dog was already dead and thoroughly cooked, so I couldn’t possibly be held culpable), but was not enthused about either the taste or the texture. And no, I haven’t eaten it since.

Dog meat is considered a ‘hot’ food and thus suitable for men, particularly during winter. It helps warm the blood, making men more virile and energetic and improving circulation (sproing!). Of course, China is by no means the only country where dogs are consumed, nor is such consumption limited to men. One former teaching assistant, a 4^th year English major, told me in her charming accent that ‘dog is dericious’ and that she enjoys it on occasion, against the common lore which advises women not to eat dog lest excessive bleeding.

Dogs as pets are increasingly popular among Chinese, and there is growing sentiment against eating them (dogs, not Chinese) in some circles. But in MyTown people walk their Bichons, their Papillons and their Corgis past restaurants sporting large neon signs advertising 狗肉 gou rou dog meat, without apparent conflict or contradiction.

Services at hospitals are ‘pay-as-you-go’ and involve considerable bureaucracy. I went to local hospital to check on a new fast-growing mole last year. First off, a lineup to register and determine the appropriate specialist. A second lineup to pay the requisite (modest) fee. A third lineup at the relevant department to get into the queue. Hours later (which included a 90-minute break for lunch during which the entire place shut down completely), the doctor advised that MyTown lacked specialists capable of assessing the mole and that I’d need to go to a hospital in the nearest large city.

After much travel, registering, paying, and collecting of anesthetic and sundry medical supplies, plus carting an ever-growing stack of paperwork from department to department where all of it was carefully inspected and verified at each step, I finally had the mole surgically excised, competently and painlessly, by a female surgeon. First cut to last stitch took maybe ten minutes.

Not even a small scar now reminds me of the ordeal, which consumed the better part of three days all told. The proceedings involved heavy use of the hospital’s proprietary smartphone app and repeated trips to the bottom floor of the hospital for printouts to confirm everything done on the app, without either of which I could not have gotten any care at all, an apparently pointless state of affairs which I really don’t want to know more about, primarily because it would inevitably run into the ultimate answer to whatever I inquire deeply about in China: 没有为什么 mei you wei shen me - there’s no why, an explanation which illuminates the Taoist underpinnings of reality in the Middle Kingdom.

Massage establishments offer another entry into the TCM part of the system, since practitioners are licensed to offer treatments such as 拔罐 baguan cupping and 刮痧 guasha scraping, a barbarous practice favored primarily by vain females and reputed to be exquisitely painful.

Cupping; not particularly painful, but the benefits escape me.

Health hysteria is common among the people, especially where children are concerned. In my early China days, teaching primary school, I absent-mindedly tapped a small boy on the head with a blackboard eraser one day and a tiny sprinkle of chalk dust drifted into his eye. The eye teared up, flushed the dust, and all was well by the end of class (I made a point of checking). The next day I was hauled unceremoniously into the headmaster’s office and threatened with hospital bills and a lawsuit. Needless to say I didn’t do that again.

The Number One Medical Ailment in China, as remarked upon even by Chinese netizens themselves, is simple: 我不舒服 wo bu shufu, I don’t feel well, meaning the sufferer has a cold or flu. Chinese hospitals are crowded pretty much 24/7, stuffed to the brim with such people, all of whom correspondingly receive the Number One Medical Treatment: an IV drip containing saline and antibiotics which are entirely ineffective against flu and cold viruses. The saline (not Ringer’s) is, as in the West, just water and table salt (NaCl) at a higher concentration than found naturally in the blood, meaning its medical value is dubious at best. The antibiotics have no value whatsoever, given that they’re only effective against bacterial infections and indeed such mal-prescription is probably harmful as it increases the likelihood of generating antibiotic-resistant strains.

At-home care for the common cold.

Some clinicians, operating from private facilities, also provide the Number One Medical Treatment via home visits. Thus my nephew Hanbao, a strapping young lad decidedly averse to the intellectual rigors of primary school, frequently finds himself unwell, at home, laying idly on the sofa for hours and even days on end, playing with one of his mom’s smartphones and sucking up saline and antibiotics by the bucketful, endlessly fussed over by 阿姨ayi auntie (aka Humble Wife) and 姥姥laolao grandma while manfully avoiding even the vaguest appearance of scholastic industriousness.

I’m unsure of the long-term effects, but I do know that at age 10 this kid was incapable of opening a one-liter bottle of soda pop without assistance (seriously), and today at age 12 he is incapable of unlocking and opening the front door to our apartment, despite repeated instruction and demonstrations from both myself and Humble Wife. Coincidence? I think not!

Antibiotic pills and ointments are available without prescription at the many, many drugstores found in every Chinese city, and people consume them as if they were magic, for every conceivable ailment, along with a host of mostly useless traditional herbal and folk medicines, a number of which I’ve tried, none of which seemed to have achieved much (except for the laxatives, but that’s another story entirely). I’ve discussed the futility of the IV/antibiotic regimen with Humble Wife and with nephew’s mom and dad more than once. They smile, agree politely, and head right back to hospital at the first sign of the sniffles. Sigh.

Given all the above, it would be less than surprising to find that Chinese don’t live nearly as long as their more enlightened American brethren and sisteren. In fact, I’ve got the numbers right here… let’s see: Chinese men live on average 75 years, American men 73.7 years. Wait, what? That can’t be right! Among females, Chinese live 80.5 years, Americans 79.1 years. Hmmm….

Maybe Americans need to eat more black dog.