Hospital

I just learned something interesting about the hospitals here- if you are in the hospital for whatever reason, the hospital staff only does stricly medical things for you. Someone else has to do things like buy food and give it to you, roll you over if you need to roll over, help you use a bedpan, etc. Hmmm!

I know this because a sister from the English congregation is in the hospital- she was on her way to take her scooter license test and tipped over her scooter and it broke her leg. She had to have an operation on it and she'll be in the hospital for at least a week. Fortunately for her she's married- her husband is Korean and they both speak excellent Chinese. It got me thinking about what trouble I'll be in if I have to go to the hospital. I'm sure people would help me but that's a lot of help to be giving- you need someone in your room 24/7, really. And I only know a few Witnesses who speak both English and Chinese very well- even who speak both languages better than me, there's only a handful. But I guess you can hire a nurse too to help you. And I could keep the CTs at Hess on speed-dial!

I also have to wonder more and more about the medical care you get here. For example, Maggie is the only person I know who's broken her leg and hasn't gotten an operation to put pins in it. It seems like that's a lot unneccesary operaions. But maybe that only seems weird because I rarely heard of people breaking their legs in America but here it seems pretty common. Darn scooters! I don't know if I've been lucky or if I'm just a really careful and skillful driver. On the other hand I know probably hundreds of people (or know of them) in different congregations who haven't been greivously injured in a scooter accident. And only a few who have.