I'm not sure if today's topic is very interesting or if it is even all that different in other countries. I have a feeling that most of my American friends wouldn't have appreciated the experience I had yesterday...
Yesterday I had my annual check-up. And this year I decided it would just be easiest to have the check-up done at the community Health Center. I have avoided these group health check-ups in the past though I've been through it once before... anyway I knew what to expect... Still, it was a long morning...
So, as Japan has basically socialized medicine, we are offered annual health check-ups very cheaply and I applied to "Women's Day" and was given an appointment date along with a test kit for a stool sample (TMI?) and a questionnaire. Yesterday I arrived at the health center and turned in the questionnaire and kit at the temporary table by the front door and was directed to another table where I paid about $30 for the full check-up. I had had the option of just taking certain tests but I got the full treatment!
(picture from the Internet)
I was given a folder with lots of boxes on it and a cup to take a urine sample and told to go upstairs. Upstairs, there was someone who looked at my paper and pointed me to a "changing room". It was actually a conference room with tables laid out with heavily starched and pressed hospital gowns. Thankfully there were some in large sizes and I chose one and along with maybe 10 other ladies plus others who were coming in and out of the room, I undressed in front of everybody, stuffed all the clothes I'd been wearing into a plastic bag, and put on the hospital gown. (First mistake. The poster on the wall told us to take EVERYTHING off so I did... This meant it was very breezy under the hospital gown...)
Once in the gown, and carrying my jacket, my bag of clothes, my purse and my little cup, I was pointed to a bathroom to take a urine sample. Rats... This bathroom only has Japanese style toilets... Japanese style toilets involve squatting close to the ground and I find it rather hard to keep my balance at any time not to mention while holding onto a paper cup.... (TMI?) I deposited my cup on the numbered square that I'd been assigned at the table and was pointed to a large room to sit with 15 or 20 other women as we waited to get our blood pressure taken.
The system wasn't a great one because there were three nurses sitting at their desks and they would call up each patient one at a time and go over the questionnaire we had written, take our blood pressure and stamp our folder with the boxes. And each time one person was called to the desk, all the rest of us stood up and advanced one more chair in the line. Let me tell you, it was a lot of standing up, shuffling forward (with all the stuff we were all carrying) and sitting down again to be repeated endlessly...
After my blood pressure check-up, the nurse pointed to the next box on my folder and told me to go get an ECG down the hall in another room. I was the only patient when I first went in and was immediately taken behind some very thick curtains into a cubicle and told to untie my gown so that my waist measurements could be taken. Untie my gown... I'm stark naked under my gown but it was Women's health day so... I have to hand it to the technician. She didn't flinch at all as she took my waist measurements but she did ask if I had my panties with me and that I should put them on until further down the line in my tests. (TMI) Oops. Sorry about that! The poster did say everything should come off! But I guess that didn't really mean panties too...
After the ECG I was directed back to the large room and told to have a glaucoma test taken. At each and every booth I went to, there was always a chair for us to leave our bags, purses and jackets on, but my load kept falling off onto the floor! No problem (I think) with my eyes. On to a doctor who listened to my heart, measured my height and took down my weight. I was pointed to another table where my blood was taken and then directed downstairs to get a mammogram and a pap smear...
(picture from the Internet)
These tests were taken in health check vans and there were four of them parked in a square like a covered wagon settlement. Pink vans for the pap smear tests. Take off your shoes, enter the van, remove underclothes, duck under more heavy curtains, get settled with MORE curtains dividing the top half of my body from the lower half, whoops! Okay, I guess that's done, climb down from the chair, back through the curtains, let another patient go past me as she takes my place and I collect my stuff again (and put on my panties!) I actually felt sorry for the poor doctor who sat on the other side of that curtain and looked at ladies' bums all day but never said a word.
There were certainly a lot of staff around and I was immediately sent to the front of the same van for a mammogram. Those vans are designed to do dual duties! I had to wait while three other ladies went ahead of me but when called in, it was through more curtains, and then the mammogram was much like any other I assume. This was the only part of the day that anything HURT!
From that van I was pointed to another van, this time for a stomach test. This was also probably like any other stomach x-ray exam. Pour some fizzy stuff into your mouth, drink some water, don't burp, drink down a chalky substance (Barium) and then grip the hand rails of the machine as it spun me around and upside down and into all sorts of positions. On my way out I was given some stomach medicine to offset any constipation caused by the Barium and more water.
The next stop was a breast ultra-sound exam but that room had at least 50 people in it and I played musical chairs with all of them for the next hour. Every minute or so we'd all move up a chair. There seemed to be four curtained cubicles, with two technicians and their machines. When it was FINALLY my turn, I went into a cubicle, listened as the technician worked on someone on the other side of a curtain (and there was another patient probably lying inches from me separated by a curtain on the other side of me too) and then the technician flicked her curtain shut with the first patient and flicked my curtain open on the other side and she went through the same process with her ultra-sound machine again. She never had to stand up! Just work on the patient to her left, patient to her right, over and over again!
I was at last done and could go upstairs and change back into my own clothes and head out the front door. There were still another 50 patients waiting for their ultra-sound so it looked like it was going to be a long day for the technicians! I don't know about them, but I was tired!!
So what do you think? Is this how it always goes? I felt much like I was part of a very well organized cattle round-up and got zero person-to-person care. Everyone was pleasant, everyone was efficient but I doubt if I ever had anyone look me in the eye. But for $30... if this type of health check-up can catch problems early, I'd say it is worth it... And as Tetsu points out, we have a choice. I could have ignored the community papers that were sent to me and just have paid out of pocket to have a private health firm do the same on a man-to-man basis. There are positives and negatives to both sides...
