Jing Shan Day 6
This morning, we were supposed to present our health education project to the clinic patients, but because there were not that many patients in the waiting room, Dr. Pan thought it might be better if we waited until tomorrow morning right before clinic begins, where there should be more patients waiting to see the doctor. Our group has prepared a few Q & A’s as well as prizes for our audience. Should be interesting to see how this goes tomorrow.
Our afternoon was filled with a tour of the Jing Shan Township Hospital. The hospital is fairly new, however, many of its facilities have not been utilized. There are about 100 beds in the hospital wards; only about 1/3 is being used. We were most impressed with the physical therapy ward. One of the therapists showed us all the equipment that the hospital has. It seems that there is a great demand for physiotherapy, and this department generates most of the revenue for the hospital.
Even though the hospital itself is very impressive for a local hospital, I still have a few reserved thoughts about it. As to my understanding, this town only has about 21,000+ townspeople, and even though the land the hospital was built on and building the hospital itself were all made possible by charity, it is still a very small town to require a fully-loaded hospital. And as we have seen today, not all of its facilities are used. Our guide has also mentioned that there is no OB/GYN physician, and some of the physicians are not hospitalists. There are days in which no new patients are admitted. If most patients are able to, I believe they don’t mind making a longer trip to Keelung or even into Taipei City to see a doctor in one of the bigger hospitals. Economically, the hospital cannot stand on its own, had it not receive funding from the Taipei County government.
On the positive side, at least within this township, there IS a local hospital that can accept acute emergencies, and there are beds available. If some of the minor issues are dealt with, it has potential to be a very good hospital too. I would be interested to come here in the future for more exposure to community medicine.
I guess as Dr. Jan has commented in my earlier posts, I shouldn’t be too quick to judge; instead, keep an open mind about things, and observe even more carefully.