Friday, August 04, 2006
The National Health Services
4-Aug-2006:
When Dominic was 3 months old, he was diagnosed with Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). This was in KL and his paediatrician charged a minimum of RM50 each visit. On his first visit, Dominic had a blood and urine test, all done on the same day and the results known on the same day after about 1 hour, after which UTI was more or less confirmed and the doctor put him on antibiotics for 7 days. Then, the doctor ordered a culture on his urine and the results were known a week later, during our 2nd visit. By the the infection has cleared. Another urine test confirmed that. The doctor explained that UTI could happen due to several reasons, of which, two of them are serious cases and need to be diagnosed:
- Kidney malfuction - This was ruled out by an ultrasound done on the same day. And the results were known immediately after the scan.
- Vesico Ureteral reflux (meaning urine travels back from the bladder towards the kidney) - This can be ruled out by doing a micturating cystogram (or something like that), but the doctor told us that it is best to do it after 1 month so that the results will be more accurate.
But we would be on our way to the UK in 2 weeks time. So the doctor wrote us a referral letter so that we could get the test done in the UK. Meanwhile, the doctor prescribed two months supply of antibiotics as a prevention until the reflux is ruled out.
On 18-May-2006, I took Dominic to a GP in London and showed her the referral letter from Dominic's paediatrician in KL. The first thing she did was to prescribe another 2 months supply of antibiotics. She then said that she will write a referral to request for paediatric service and I will get an appointment via the mail. I asked when can I expect the mail to come and my eyes almost popped out when she said 2 months!I received a letter from the hospital on 7-Jun-06 telling me to book an appointment by phone. I checked my calendar and decided that the next Friday or the following Monday would be fine. When I finally called, I was told that the earliest date they had for me was 12-July-06. I then settled for 24-July-2006 because we wanted a Monday or Friday so that SM can have a long weekend off.On 24-July-2006, we arrived at the hospital on time. The paediatrician was also right on time. We didn't have to wait a single minute. She asked tonnes of questions ... how is Dominic feeding, is he crawling, rolling, etc. After that, she said that she will book the test and we will get another appointment by mail in 4-6 weeks time! She then prescribed us more antibiotics and we waited more than 1 hour at the hospital pharmacy for the prescription (because it was a 'pink slip', which means we can only get the prescription from the hospital pharmacy and not any high street pharmacies). She also gave us a follow-up appointment to review the results of the test, which is 3 months later, on 2-Oct-2006.A few days later, we received another letter from the hospital saying that a micturating cystogram has been booked for Dominic on 4-Aug-2006. We went there. A doctor inserted a catheter (which is a tube) into Dominic's bladder through his penis. Well, I didn't know that you can actually insert a tube there. As you might have guessed, he screamed bloody hell. But I didn't think it was painful because it was a different kind of scream. The catheter has an opening at the end where the radiographer later inserted some dye to fill up Dominic's bladder. Then an x-ray is done. The radiographer could see instantly that the test was negative. However, he advised us to continue with the antibiotics until we see the paediatrician. The paediatrician will receive the results in 10 days time, but we will only be seeing her on 2-Oct-2006. I stopped the antibiotics the next day.Well, SM liked the health services here. According to him, it's fair. In Malaysia, you'll need to have money to get good services. Otherwise, you need to be acquainted to some Dato' or Tan Sri. And he liked that the doctors here respect his time. In KL, we always had to wait a minimum of 1 hour and we had to be there at the hospital before the clinic opens. Here, the appointment said 10:20am, and we were attended to at 10:20am. I think I still prefer the private medical services in KL because I like things to be done NOW and RIGHT HERE. SM argued that we had to pay outrageous amount of money in KL but everything is free here. But I reminded him that I claimed everything from my company (except maternity costs, which the company doesn't cover). There are private medical services here too, but I think it will be very expensive.At the end, if you compare government to government, the NHS here is definitely waaayyy better than in Malaysia. Not that I've been to any government doctors in Malaysia but I've heard enough stories to know that it's hell in there.When you come right down to it, money do speak louder than anything and no matter what other people say, money is important. Whoever said that money can't buy happiness was just trying to console himself for not having it. No one can deny that money makes it much easier for you to do the things that will make you happy. And it helps take away a great amount of suffering from your life. Maybe some of you will beg to differ. :-)
Comments:
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Hi Dear...very interesting to read about the NHS. Sounds very much like the public system in Australia. I've only ever worked in Oz so I can't compare it to Msia but my Dad works in the private system in Msia so I have some form of comparison. Let me tell you now that you are RIGHT....if you have money ie professional, it's MUCH BETTER to be in Msia in my opinion.
THere are sooooo many reasons and I'll try and highlight them:
1) Here in Oz, even though there is the public system which is free, most of the middle to upper class buy private health insurance ( which costs an about 300-400 per quarter of year). Why? Because, in case of an ELECTIVE op eg: knee repair, you can choose your surgeon + need not wait months and months like U did for non-urgent tests/ops.
2)Even if you are a private pt and call for an ambulance to take U to hospital in emergency cases of say a heart attack, the ambulance will take you to the CLOSEST PUBLIC hospital and not private hospital by rule. You will of course be seen like a public pt (regardles if you held private insurance) in Emergency ( which means you get junior drs like myself and not specialists!!!).
You can elect to remain to be either public/private in that public hospital or elect to be transferred to a private hospital for further care but most of the private hospitals are normally full and you can't get in.
So say...you want elect to be private. You still stay in a public bed ( ie not exactly 5-star hotel style) and by rule, the consultant is meant to see you every day. But from what I can see, they normally send their registrar or junior drs like myself to check up on you.
3) Most big companies in Asia, pay private health insurance for their employees anyways. I was talking to a gf (engineer) who worked in Spore and she said all her health and dental was paid by her company and they went to the most expensive private hospitals eg: Raffles.
So I ask myself this, why the hell then would U bother paying hundreds of dollars for private insurance in a silly system like this if you are young and healthy and lived in Australia???????
In Msia, if you've got the money, you get service INSTANTANEOUSLY. You ONLY ever see a specialist. We are talking about your HEALTH ....I think ppl would pay an arm and leg for the best, don't you think?
True, it's better to be in Oz if you are lower- middle class because then everything is free which is why I'm considering of returning back to Asia where drs earn MUCH more. Here, a plumber earns more than me.....Australia is tooooo socialisitc for my liking as we were brought up with "money talks" settings back in Msia and you know what, I hate to say this but because we are professionals, this works FINE for us.
Finally, you can't have maids here :(:(:(:( One has to do their own housechores. Imagine if you were working a full-time job and then had to come back and cook and clean after your family of say 4.......MY GAWD.
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THere are sooooo many reasons and I'll try and highlight them:
1) Here in Oz, even though there is the public system which is free, most of the middle to upper class buy private health insurance ( which costs an about 300-400 per quarter of year). Why? Because, in case of an ELECTIVE op eg: knee repair, you can choose your surgeon + need not wait months and months like U did for non-urgent tests/ops.
2)Even if you are a private pt and call for an ambulance to take U to hospital in emergency cases of say a heart attack, the ambulance will take you to the CLOSEST PUBLIC hospital and not private hospital by rule. You will of course be seen like a public pt (regardles if you held private insurance) in Emergency ( which means you get junior drs like myself and not specialists!!!).
You can elect to remain to be either public/private in that public hospital or elect to be transferred to a private hospital for further care but most of the private hospitals are normally full and you can't get in.
So say...you want elect to be private. You still stay in a public bed ( ie not exactly 5-star hotel style) and by rule, the consultant is meant to see you every day. But from what I can see, they normally send their registrar or junior drs like myself to check up on you.
3) Most big companies in Asia, pay private health insurance for their employees anyways. I was talking to a gf (engineer) who worked in Spore and she said all her health and dental was paid by her company and they went to the most expensive private hospitals eg: Raffles.
So I ask myself this, why the hell then would U bother paying hundreds of dollars for private insurance in a silly system like this if you are young and healthy and lived in Australia???????
In Msia, if you've got the money, you get service INSTANTANEOUSLY. You ONLY ever see a specialist. We are talking about your HEALTH ....I think ppl would pay an arm and leg for the best, don't you think?
True, it's better to be in Oz if you are lower- middle class because then everything is free which is why I'm considering of returning back to Asia where drs earn MUCH more. Here, a plumber earns more than me.....Australia is tooooo socialisitc for my liking as we were brought up with "money talks" settings back in Msia and you know what, I hate to say this but because we are professionals, this works FINE for us.
Finally, you can't have maids here :(:(:(:( One has to do their own housechores. Imagine if you were working a full-time job and then had to come back and cook and clean after your family of say 4.......MY GAWD.
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