Chapter 124: Black Hair

The activities center and the gaming room in the sanatorium was used for the clinical examination.

There were two ping pong tables in the activities center, placed rather widely apart. If both of the tables were dismantled and their components pushed apart, hundreds of square meters of real estate would suddenly be made available, and if the heavy wooden doors separating the activities center were pushed open, a gaming room that was around six hundred square meters would be revealed. The area was divided into separate sections for Go, Chinese Chess, Bridge, Mahjong, and other games.

Curtains have been placed in the middle of the entire area—dividing it in two to make up the activities center and the gaming room—and the clinical examination area. Varying veteran cadres with varying appointment times arrived leisurely as care workers ushered them with open arms.

A health inspection was not a clinical examination, per se. The doctors would not be performing X-ray, CT scans, or a large volume of similar auxiliary examinations. It was more on sending specialists to this place to read previous test reports and conduct some one-on-one health checkups and inquiries.

Although the doctors Yun Hua Hospital had sent could not be said to be the best, they were considered as elites. Even a slightly dim-witted attending physician like Doctor Zhou would still be considered as the crème de la crème.

These people were sent to Centurial Beach Sanatorium to solve the residents’ problems.

The health problems that could be dealt with by the health inspection team itself would be dealt with at the sanatorium. The health problems that could not be dealt with by the health inspection team would be dealt with later in the hospital.

Although the average age in Japan was in the eighties which was also claimed to be the highest in the world, the average age of Yun Hua City’s healthcare target group easily surpassed the average age in Japan. After all, those who could not live that long would never have the chance of becoming part of the healthcare target group.

Yun Hua City’s level 1 healthcare target group were deputy governors, academicians in science and engineering academies, members of the Red Army and others who contributed to the war effort before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident[1] in 1937. The Level 2 healthcare target group were those at the rank of deputy bureau directors and below, those who contributed to the war effort during the war, those who contributed to the war effort during the Chinese Communist Revolution and honorably discharged as division heads. The Level 3 healthcare target group covered an even broader scope, they were those cadres who ranked above division heads, including all the retired cadres. Those who held senior professional titles, university professors included, high school and elementary school teachers, and the professional members of the mining and manufacturing industries.

Of course, there were different treatments for different levels of healthcare target groups. For example, what the members of level 1 healthcare target group received were reimbursable medical services. For level 2 members, they could only apply for reimbursement. For level 3 members, they received only a certain percentage in reimbursements.

Even the rooms and fees paid by level 1, level 2, and level 3 members when they stayed in the sanatorium varied. Level 1 residents did not need to pay; the Veteran Cadres Office would just offer some sort of reconciliation [2]. They could just come and stay here anytime they wanted to, and they could even take someone else with them. Level 2 residents also did not need to pay, but there were additional reimbursement procedures, and a limit on the time they could spend here every year. Although level 3 residents needed to pay a negligible amount of around ten RMB, there was still a possibility of unitary reimbursement, but still, the experience between the three levels was different.

Of course, living in the sanatorium was more comfortable.

Ling Ran saw with his own eyes that a few patients’ health problems were diagnosed, even when the symptoms were not obvious. He quickly noticed something.

Ling Ran did not have any experience in providing outpatient consultation, so he was a little at a loss when it came to patient diagnosis. But now, after seeing a group of doctors making diagnoses, he was starting to get the hang of it.

Compared to the common outpatient diagnostic services, doctors were more meticulous in interviewing and checking on the patients. To an observer, the logic of doing so was more apparent, and it was easier to grasp what the doctors were thinking.

After hearing in on the diagnoses, Ling Ran was starting to find it more interesting. He took a few steps forward so that he could learn more.

When he took a big step forward, and a group of children followed him. The initially quiet line was instantly filled with peals of laughter. A few children even seized the chance to begin running around.

When they saw their children moving around, the parents nearby immediately moved with them, and a few doctors also made a move to guard the door, worried that the children would rush in and break the equipment.

“Doctor Ling, you should watch them closely,” shouted the resident doctors in the room nervously.

“How am I supposed to watch?” Ling Ran was somewhat perplexed. There were nearly twenty children near him, and all of them looked like they would about to cause a ruckus at any moment.

A resident doctor who had an average look and an unnoticeable presence came running out from the team frantically before he said to the children with a smile, “Children, come, I’ll bring you all to play outside.”

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A little girl across him immediately crossed her arms to protect herself and said aggressively, “No. You’re no fun.”

“How am I no fun?”

“You’re not good looking.” The child manifested a child’s talent of being blunt, and it hurt.

The young resident doctor stared at the child opposite him, dumbfounded. He did not expect that young children now would be so direct with their words.

“Don’t run around, stand still,” Ling Ran turned his head and said. The children stood still.

But when he turned his head back, the group of children laughed boisterously.

Obviously, they thought that it was a game of Red Light, Green Light.

So Ling Ran leaned against the door to take note of the children while concurrently observing the health checkup in the room.

An old lady was arguing with a doctor, and it immediately attracted Ling Ran’s attention.

He heard the doctor ask, “Do you have rheumarthritis?”

The old lady shook her head and said, “I don’t.”

The doctor sounded puzzled.

“Your morning stiffness seems most severe, and you have many parts suffering from arthroncus and rheumatic nodules. This is rheumarthritis.”

“I’ve gone for the test for that rooma-titis or whatever you call it, and the test came out negative.”

The old lady pointed at the medical document in the doctor’s hand and laughed proudly.

The doctor sighed helplessly and said, “The standard procedure for diagnosing rheumarthritis is not like this. Take a look at your joints…”

“I’ve had my blood sample tested, I’m negative.”

“A positive rheumatoid factor is just a symptom for rheumarthritis. A positive rheumatoid factor is not necessarily rheumarthritis, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t have rheumarthritis, even if you’re tested negative. Look at your joints now, the symmetrical swelling and the swelling in the wrist joints are very clear symptoms…”

“I’m not here for you to take a look at this,” the old lady said impatiently, “You take a look at the other parts first.”

“Take a look at the other parts?”

“Take a look at this strand of hair standing straight on the back of my foot. What is going on? When I touch it, it hurts.” The old lady removed her shoe and revealed her big toe for the doctor.

The doctor looked at the single hair on the big toe and fell into deep contemplation.

Ling Ran placed his hand on his forehead, and suddenly, he felt that watching over the children was not a terrible job.