Normally the government hospitals are huge and quite crowded and it can bewildering if your Chinese is not so good. This is where I found the “VIP service” really useful. I used to have occasional lower back pains throughout my 10 years in China regardless of whether I was in Shanghai, Shenyang or Beijing. As such, I have been to least one government hospital in each of these cities and this write-up is based on this experience. Let’s take the example when I was living in Shenyang. The first step is always my company doctors. The BMW plants had medical centers in all of their plants fielded by both international and local doctors. Many of these doctors were also my working colleagues in various change projects. Therefore the first stop was the company’s medical center where after consultation, the medical center staff called and booked an appointment for me at the Shenjing Hospital, a large government hospital in Shenyang. I had to go to the 7th floor which was also called the VIP floor. There, an English-speaking nurse met me and helped me with the hospital registration. Then she brought me to wait at the VIP rooms. When my appointment time was up to see the doctor, she brought me to see the doctor. After that she followed me to the in-house pharmacy to collect the medicine and then bid my farewell. This support and service was very useful and comforting.
