A medical delegation from St. Paul, Brazil has a friendly visit to TCM WINDOW, and they take the opportunity to learn the facilities of our medical center.

A medical group from Brasil is looking around the bed-ward in our medical center.

China is a huge country and the level and quality of medical care available depends very much on your location. Many of the remote villages are hours from doctors and hospitals and, if lucky, may have some sort of para-medical person. The big cities though have many first-class facilities. In today's China there is no need for the expatriate to go to Hong Kong or to return home for medical care.

In Beijing for example it is possible to go to one of the local Chinese hospitals (no English spoken) and pay ridiculously low prices. These doctors though get commission on the amount of medicine they prescribe and hence tend to prepare large prescriptions.

Another alternative, which is slightly more expensive, is to go to one of the Chinese hospitals that have a special foreigner / VIP department. Most of these doctors speak English and many have been trained abroad.

The third alternative is to go to one of the privately run, foreign invested facilities. In these facilities all the staff (barring the orderlies) speak fluent English and the majority of the doctors are foreigners. Unfortunately, the prices are unbelievably high and are normally only affordable for people who have good comprehensive medical insurance. The main advantage of these hospitals is that many of them have direct billing arrangements with the medical insurance companies.