the health check - part 1

As part of getting a work permit a group of us had to go the Le Loi hospital for a health check. Noone knew exactly what to expect although when we were told that the five of us would have to go twice and to expect it to take 3-4 hours we knew there would be a lot of waiting involved.

Here's a picture of Annabel, Elsbeth and Steve doing some lesson planning while we were waiting for the fees to be paid to the hospital and the paper work to be collected. And here's a picture of Mr Dat from ILA (in the middle) paying the fees and collecting the forms.

We had to bring a passport sized photo to be attached to the paper work. (This was medically very important as you will soon read!)

Actually I should start by saying that anyone who comes to the hospital has to fill in forms and carry them around with them to various treatment rooms, so we weren't any different.

The first stop was a dual thing - blood was taken for testing (we presume) and we had to give a urine sample. The urine had to go into a very small test-tube (I wish I had the picture for this! I think that Elsbeth has one.) and then was left in a rack - identification for the blood and urine was via a number - but without being sealed!?

After that we went upstairs for a dental check. However, none of us made it into the dentist's chair. Probably a good thing because every treatment room we went to there lots of genuine patients waiting. The thing is our dental records were assessed via our photos. Now seeing that my photo was one taken for a passport, and seeing how for Australian passports you are not allowed to smile or show your teeth, I'm not quite sure how the condition of my teeth was assessed.

The other important stop on this day was for a chest x-ray. We are not quite sure what this was looking for - maybe to check lungs - but we are each now the proud owner of an x-ray which we can give to our doctor or throw away (Mr Dat's advice). Mine has a big white area on it - anyone able to diagnose my problem?

(Stay tuned for what happens on the second visit to the hospital)