Day +119

I am quite fine today, with mild coughing and running nose.

My youngest son who is six months old was having fever last Thursday. This was the first time he fell sick. My wife gave him Paracetamol a few times, but the fever still came back a few hours after he took the medicine. The next day, we decided to bring him to see a doctor. Due to Deepavali and Hari Raya Aidilfitri holiday, most clinics were closed.

However, one child specialist clinic nearby my house was open. This clinic is the most “hardworking” child specialist clinic we ever know. It always closes later and opens earlier than other clinics during festive season. But many people including me dare not visit the clinic because we felt that the doctor is too commercial. He used to prescribe many strong medicine and charge very expensively. Few years ago when we brought our eldest son Daniel to have vaccination there, the doctor persuaded my wife and me to have Hepatitis A vaccination. When we later visited a GP (General Practitioner, non-specialist doctor) and requested him to give us second dose of the vaccination, the GP refused. “Who asked you to have this vaccination?” he questioned.

There was once a few people infected with a type of African Meningitis in this country. The child specialist almost convinced my sister to have the whole family vaccinated against meningitis. I believe he over exaggerated the danger of the disease. I advised my sister to seek a second opinion about this. In the end, she called a GP regarding this. The GP advised her that the vaccination was completely unnecessary. In fact, the GP didn’t even know where to get the vaccine!

We can conclude from the cases above that although it is a child clinic, its appetite is clearly beyond catching “small fish”. It is a child clinic that practices a policy called “一网打尽，大小通吃” (Catch all fish; regardless they are small or big).

To be continued and see you next post :-)