Mae culpa

I was getting mixed up with the other international clinic that was open on XiYuan Lu, but the block is now under re-development.

I blame the confusion on pre-senile dementia, and the resurection of a 3 year old thread.

I've dealt with these people once and I've done some research into them. It's a complete scam, listed through some US shell company that hasn't filed their legally required paperwork with the SEC for many years.

My visits to Richland date back 3-4 years, but in the light of @flengs' experience, I felt it was worth adding mine. I saw the same English-speaking doctor there 5-6 times in a year for dizziness problems. He prescribed different drugs each time (which I put down to him experimenting to find the best fit for me) but without success. On my last visit he suddenly diagnosed a trapped blood vessel and insisted on manual manipulation of myneck. He twisted my neck around voilently in ways that were frankly scary. A later x-ray in another hospital suggested some bone damage might have been done. Suffice to say, a single visit to the International Clinic 6 months ago resulted in a prescription for cheaper and more common blood pressure drugs and I haven't been dizzy since. I aalso urge caution to anyone attending Richland.

I heard Richland Hospital has proper testing material.

I think the medical staff is of the same level as other Kunming healthcare facilities. I needed to translate some specifics of a medical report I got in another specialized hospital. I wanted to do this by letting the Richland doctor have a phone call with the specialized doctor that had done the tests. I came in and there sat a young physician with a translating nurse. When the phone call to the other hospital wasn't successful he wanted to have look at the report himself. I asked if that would make sense if he wasn't a doctor that was specialized in that specific field. He told me he wanted to have a look anyway. To my horror, he promptly misdiagnosed me with a truly appalling disease. When I came home I was puzzled. I didn't have any symptoms, how could I have something that serious. I checked the internet and found out that the condition that he described DIDN'T EVEN EXIST. Well, I have to give him, he had me stressing out there for a minute. I wanted to confront him with his mistake but apparently all the doctors had taken the weekend off. Eventually, in combination with my visit to the other state run facility, I was in constant uncertainty and stress over the period of 4 days for something that turned to be NOTHING. I had NOTHING.

Please use the highest level of common sense in dealing with local healthcare. The situation is grim. Best to let them test (if the facilities are ok) and make conclusions and decisions by yourself, if serious ask a physician in another country. Never blindly trust anything they say.

Thought I'd chime in on this one after having an extensive relationship with this hospital.

Fall of 2008, I manifested symptoms of Deep Vein Thrombosis. I knew what it was because my dad had had it and told me all about what symptoms to look for. I knew exactly how to find the problem and told the physicians at Kunming Hospital #1 to do the tests. They did not find the problem, even though I told them how and where to look. Distraught, I went to Richland where they promptly found the problem, showed me the results, and insisted on immediate treatment. Throughout the procedure, I got the feeling that I was their first case of DVT and that they were checking medical journals every step of the way. Treatment was successful. The private room I stayed in was super clean and I was treated with courtesy, if not curiosity. The entirety of my in-hospital stay cost me 20,000 yuan. For my father, who had similar treatment in the U.S., the cost was 25,000 dollars.

In an emergency situation, there is no way I would recommend this hospital in that it seems to be run by a lethargic monolingual skeleton crew that takes weekends off. If you know what you have and you want a clean place to be treated, I think its a good spot. One final "however"...read this article just as a reminder that you're in Kunming, where healthcare has LONG way to go.

<a href="http://gokunming.com/en/blog/item/1553/bereaved_family_forces_richland_hospital_shutdown" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gokunming.com/[...]</a>