A Very Uncomfortable Experience

I have never before in my life felt a need to tell a doctor that her attitude and behvior made me feel uncomfortable but I did during my appointment with the doctor at Oasis Healthcare.

I contacted Oasis Healthcare to schedule my Week 22 pregnancy check up. I explained to them that I had had a negative experience at a Chinese hospital, that I had had my last check up in Denmark during a vacation and that I would return to Denmark permanently shortly and thus only needed the week 22 check up handled at their hospital. The woman I communicated with on email was very kind and helpful and answered all my questions about what was included in their standard week 22 check up. I asked if they suggested to add blood testing but I was told that this was not necesarry at week 22 if I had this done at my last check up in Denmark with normal results which was the case. In the email correspondence, I was also assured that my consultation would be handled by a foreign doctor speaking English which was quite important to me.

When I showed up for my appointment I was greeted by very friendly staff who spoke good English and were easy to communicate with. They had me complete numerous pages of paperwork about my medical history etc.Following, I was led to a room where a Chinese nurse measured blood pressure etc, pulse etc. Suddenly she asked me "Are you pregnant?". That left me very confused and wondering whether she even knew that I was there for the Week 22 Check Up? I asked her about this but she just kept repeating the same question. Her English was quite poor and I was confused when she kept talking about 'Ury". When she took out a little cup I, though, understood that she was talking about a urine sample.

The next step of the appointment was the consultation with the doctor. She very quickly started asking very intrusive questions that I could not see were actually relevant for neither mine nor the baby's health. In an attempt to put an end to this, I told to her that I wasn't sure if it was noted down in my journal but that I was returning to Denmark soon and would only be visiting Oasis Healthcare for my Week 22 Check Up. This only brought about more questions about whether I had purchased flight ticket for my return etc. I was also asked about whether the father of my child was going with me to Denmark and whether we were married. When I answered "No" to both questions, this prompted a question about whether the father would recognize the paternity which I found to be very offensive. The fact that my boyfriend and I are not married and that he is bound to Beijing while finishing his degree does not in any way mean that he will not be a present father. I felt very judged and uncomfortable in this situation.

During the consultatation, I felt very pressured into buying more services. Even though the woman I had scheduled the appointment with had informed me that blood testing was not part of the standard Week 22 Check up and I had had these done recently in Denmark with fine results, the doctor kept saying that I should have these tests done at Oasis as well. I kindly declined and said that I trusted the evaluation of my doctor in Denmark. She was not pleased with this. Then she started persuading me to schedule a diabetes test which is typically done between week 24-28 of pregnancy. I explained to her that since I would return to DK in my 27th week I was planning to have this procedure done in Denmark. This prompted her to ask if I already had an appointment scheduled for this in Denmark? When I replied "No", she further asked if it would be easy to set up this appointment? Next, she started talking about how I ought to have a flight certificate made as some airlines might request it. I told her that I had already checked the policy of the airline I was going to fly home with and that they are happy to fly with pregnant women up till their 8th month.As I wil be flying early in my 7th month I was not expecting this to be a problem. I felt that she disregarded this as she continued to talk about this flight certificate. When I told her that her attitude and was making me uncomfortable, she quickly told me that she did not care about money and that she was only encouraging me to have these extra procedures done because she cared about the health of the baby. I felt that she here was insinuating that if did not agree to to these extra procedures then I did not care about the health of my baby.

At one point, the Doctor did also go out of her way to explain to me how she was not Chinese but French with Chinese blood. Her nationality is none of my concern and I told her this too. All I cared about was actually that I could communicate with her in English which I more or less could, though, with some difficulty. I did notice that she would make use of a Chinese word instead of English once in a while which confused me a bit. The biggest problem, though, was her attitude. I was deeply uncomfortale during the whole cosultation and me telling her that seemed to have no effect at all as she did not change her approach or tone of voice. She was very rude and I left feeling that I had paid 1525 RMB to be insulted and verbally violated. My taxi driver was very distressed as I was crying during the whole drive home.

I realize that my reveiw has gotten quite long but I wish to be clear about exactly how I was treated by the Doctor at Oasis Healthcare so as to warn others. With that said, maybe this doctor was having a bad day. Maybe other doctors at Oasis Healthcare are lovely and professional. But I sure do not wish for any other pregnant women to have the same experience as I did.