A Trip to the Derge Hospital

Keith was definitely sick.

We were at 13,200ft--even higher than Lhasa--what felt like the highest city in the world--in Derge, Tibet.

In Derge, rich looking women wore black velvet aprons over leather chupas. Gobs of coral and turquoise in their hair and ears, silver sheathed daggers hung from waists.

In Derge, sweetness. Smiles and tashi deleks. All the children laughing, calling hello after us.

The people of Derge had cell phones and TV's, electricity and washing machines.

But what maybe they didn't have the need for, and certainly did not have, was adequate western health care.

Keith had been coughing and coughing and I was starting to get sick too--so we decided we should get checked by a doctor. Easier said than done.

Down in the hotel lobby we asked the Tibetan girl manning the desk for a menkang (hospital) or menpa (doctor). "Meo, meo" she kept saying in Chinese, although ironically, there was an ambulance parked directly outside.

Next to the front desk, there was posted a sign with numbers to call for tourist information, medical emergencies, first aid, etc. We'd tried these numbers from the phone in our room--but to no avail--after two weeks in China we still couldn't figure out how to use the phones. We gestured for the girl to call one of the numbers on the hotel phone. She kept chanting, "No, no," shaking her head.

At this point I was overwhelmed by a sense of fear--we were so far from anything and we just couldn't communicate--what if something seriously bad happened! I must admit, I succumbed to tears (not the first or last time on this trip). At that moment, two Chinese men came into the lobby, curiously eyeing me. Keith tried to tell them we needed a doctor and miracualously, one of the men knew that word in English. A look of recognition passed over his face and he wrote something on a piece of paper for us, gesturing for us to show it to a taxi driver.

So we hailed a taxi and were driven just about 2 minutes up the road to what looked like an abandoned building, with a gate drawn across the entrance. "That place?!" we gestured in disbelief. The driver shook his head yes.

So we got out of the taxi, not a person in sight. Keith pushed the gate open and we stepped through the threshold. It sort of looked like it could be a hospital--or maybe once was. There was what looked to be a pharmacy in front of us-but not a soul around. "Hello!" Keith yelled, and after a few minutes a Chinese man came down the stairs. He gestured for us to follow him across the street and down the stairs into another abandoned building and up some stairs.

He led us into a cold, dingy-walled room. There was a large aluminum ketttle on some sort of tiny burner on the floor next to a TV broken in half. In front of a window were two desks pushed together piled with stacks of papers. And seated facing each other at the desks were two people in white coats--a Chinese man and a Tibetan woman. They appeared to be doing paperwork and didn't look up when we entered the room, continuing with their paperwork.

Our escort finally got their attention, speaking rapidly in Chinese. The woman stared blankly at him, then us, then laughed. The man kept on with his work, ignoring us altogeher--a frown darkening his forehead. Keith looked through his guidebook for the words for sick and we showed them our card from the Global Doctor clinic in Chengdu that asked in Chinese if they would please call their number (the clinic had told us their nurses could translate for us 24 hrs a day). Finally the male doctor looked up, appraising us with a disgusted look on his face. Then all three shook their heads saying, "Meo, Meo." "We're sick," I futiley said, and yes began to cry.

Although my tears caused the two doctors to look even more disgusted by us, they luckily seemed to move our escort as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number. But alas, his phone didn't work. So he made the woman get out her phone and this time the call went through! She spoke in Chinese and then passed the phone to Keith who tried to explain our situation to the nurse.

After about 45 min. of back and forth on the phone and Keith prodding the doctors to check our vitals--a very cursory listen of our lungs with a stethoscope and a checking of blood pressure, the female doctor kept furrowing her brow, jotting words on a sheet of thin prescription paper, then scratching them out and shaking her head. She'd intermittently say something to the male doctor who would ignore her and keep writing. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he gave a deep sigh, stood up and examined my lungs.

After another forever of suppsed consultation on prescriptions (without any word about why or what), the escort and female doctor ushered Keith outside and told me to stay where I was in the room with the surly male doctor, sitting on some sort of desk against the wall.

The kind doctor and I spent a silent 30 minutes together. Him doing his paperwork, me rubbing my mittened hands together to stay warm--wondering where had they taken Keith and why wasn't he coming back...