In my almost 2 years here I've only gone to the hospital once, for my medical checkup to get my alien registration card. That's quite remarkable since Koreans go to the doctor/hospital (they're often the same...only a few clinics to my knowledge) for everything. Often I've been told by students to go to the hospital when all I had was a cold.
Anyways, this all changed when the other day I mysteriously injured my toe. After waking up yesterday morning in pain and limping around all morning, I decided to get it checked out, more out of annoyance than anything else.
Eventually I made my way to the hospital with a Korean church friend. When we got there they said that all the regular doctors were busy, so we should just go to the ER. After they checked my vitals, we sat there listening to an argument between a relative of a recently deceased patient and the doctor. Apparently the relative thought the cost was too much or that the doctor hadn't done his job. I thought it was interesting since it was just out in the open for everyone to hear.
Pretty soon we got ushered upstairs for x-rays. At this point I was expecting to pay a decent amount because of the x-rays. When we got back to the ER, the doctor said nothing was wrong with the bone (awesome!), and offered to do a walking boot or something, but I decided to wait until I could go to the university hospital. So I got an obligatory shot (painkiller?) and a prescription to some mystery pills (painkillers again?). I've heard that the shot and prescription are pretty much the norm no matter what your sickness. I'm sure that they're not all painkillers, but just the fact that they're medicating everything is kind of odd. But then again, you can't buy aspirin or anything else here except over the counter.
When we left, I found out my bill was under $25! Not bad, not bad at all...
