This year, I went through an unpleasant health experience. One morning, my mum woke up with a very painful foot. Her big toe was swollen and red. She couldn’t lean on her left foot. This lasted all day long in spite of the anti-inflammatory drugs she swallowed. At the end of the afternoon, she decided to see a doctor, but surgeries had closed since 6pm. Thus, the only remaining solution was the hospital emergencies (casualties).

A friend of mine mentioned that the Queen Mary Hospital, located in Pok Fu Lam on the Hong Kong Island, was a very good hospital. After a few clicks on the internet I found their website which is very useful as they provide a full list of transportation indications.

When we entered the hospital, we saw a lot of people, may be about fifty (may be more), waiting there. We headed to the reception desk (it was in fact the cashier). The system is as follows: if you are a local resident with a Hong Kong Identity Card you have to pay a forfeit of HKD100, or if you are a foreigner, the forfeit is HKD 570. Then, after payment she gave us a receipt with an identification number and asked us to go to the triage desk.

The triage desk is in fact a way to select between three different critical cases: very urgent, semi-urgent and no urgent. The woman at the triage desk tried to talk to us in Chinese. Obviously we could not understand. I realised that she was asking us what was wrong with my mum. As we could not answer her question in Chinese, we had to wait for another one who spoke a bit of English to explain my mum’s case. In the meantime, due to the pain and the fact my mum was a little impressed, she nearly fainted. So the nurse sent my mum to a room where they realized an ECG. The appliance was an old generation one with metal, but they could see my mum’s heart was normal. So after a basic explanation of my mum’s pain, she was considered as a “semi-urgent” case.

A notice on the wall indicated: “non urgent” 275 minutes’ wait, “semi-urgent” 195 minutes’. So we had just got to be patient (I truly understood why the name patient instead of client is appropriate for doctors and hospitals). We waited until my identification number was called. This took a little more than 3 hours and a half for only staying 5 minutes with this doctor who diagnosed a gout crisis. We came back to the waiting room for an extra of 15 minutes to get the prescription. At that point the nurse explained to me that I had to go to another building within the hospital complex to get the necessary drugs prescribed. It took me another 20mn.Then we could finally leave the hospital by taxi.

The hospital seems to be very good. The doctor and the nurse were competent. The only trouble is that we had to wait too long. I’ve been told most of the local people go to the hospital as it is cheaper than a private doctor. It is the main reason why it is so crowded.

For your information the complete address of the hospital is (you may need it one day):

Queen Mary Hospital

102 Pokfulam Road, HK
Tel : 2855 3838

Here you will find a list of every hospital institution based in Hong Kong. It make it easy to find the closest institution to your location.

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