Finn's Hospital Card

In Shanghai I did worry about the medical system there and I actually worked for one of the foreigner hospitals - and I was still nervous. The most anxiety producing area was the fact that there was no real reliable medical transportation to get you to ANY hospital in case of a real emergency (at least in my opinion) so I felt rather fortunate that Will and I were relatively healthy folk and the biggest priority was not stepping in front of a bus. Since they tend to use their horns in SH quite often even that wasn't overly concerning that they would just sneak up on you.

In Japan, I have been told there is reliable medical transportation; however, if you need it, you need to speak Japanese (duh) to explain where you live (more complicated than I expected) and then they will decide what hospital they are going to take you to. Ok - so I'm working on that but also figured in an emergency I can go to the lovely 86 year old neighbor and figure I could get my point across. I just have to understand that I need to have a certain level of trust - the problem is I trust the Japanese with my health/well-being, Will's health, but then we get to babyFinn - I'm not so sure - but I'm sure I would panic if we were in the US too, right? :)

So to alleviate my fears, Will told me he found the Yodagawa Christian Hospital - they have a great English website and say they have English speaking doctors. So I took the translator along with Finn and off we went on a 15 minute, $30 dollar cab ride to the hospital (yikes taxi prices are like 5-6x that in SH - welcome to the real world). To make a long story a bit shorter I was a bit dismayed that it was not like walking through the doors at Parkway Health in SH. I would have been lost with out the translator and even she had some difficulty getting my questions across. We spent at least an hour there trying to figure out how to make an appointment (vs. just walking in), what to do in an emergency, etc... I had to get a hospital card made for Phineas, but they couldn't put English names/words into their system and thus his hospital card above with his Japanese phonetic name on it. Cool, huh? I also have an appointment with a pediatrician in about 10 days for his 4 month "check-up" - so I'm holding out any final judgement on quality of care at this particular place and/or if this doctor can really speak English until then. Right now I just have to believe it will be fine - but I'm not sure that is enough for a new mom. Stay tuned...