China may be the home of traditional Chinese medicine, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has the best TCM services to offer, writes Karen Tye from Shanghai after a car accident.

In my previous column, I extolled the possible benefits of having a baby in China through the private hospital system. It seemed that some areas of health care in China were not at all inferior to the Australian public health care system.

However, not long after I wrote the story, I experienced my first semi-serious taxi accident in the five years I’ve been living in China, which once again got me thinking about health care in China.

With Chinese drivers’ nonchalance to traffic rules, I was of course surprised that I had never been involved in an accident up to that point in time. But what really knocked me for six was the fact that seeking out professional traditional Chinese medicine treatment, which the country considers a national treasure and bases approximately 40 percent of its health care on, was not as easy as I assumed it to be.

Last Christmas/New Year was one of the worst I’ve ever had. I chose to stay in Shanghai as the semester at Jiaotong University, where I study Chinese, had not yet come to a close and finals were approaching. My husband, as well as all my close friends, flew back to Oz or headed to luxurious destinations over the break. It didn’t occur to me that I was all alone in Shanghai until I was in trouble.

Here’s how it unfolded. My taxi driver had slammed on the brakes suddenly because the car in front had done the same. As I was in the back seat, I flew into the driver’s plastic barrier, using mainly my left palm to shield myself from the impact. I was initially concerned that I had sustained bone damage to my arm, but a trip to the hospital confirmed that the radiating pain up my arm involved only muscle. It was only a few days after the incident that I began experiencing sharp, excruciating and debilitating migraines. And then it all made sense when I connected the dots – whiplash equals stiff neck equals migraines.

The western medical approach to something like this is usually anti-inflammatories and painkillers, however, I didn’t just want to blanket my condition with symptomatic treatment. By that time, all the foreign or joint venture clinics were running on skeleton staff as the holidays were in full swing and I couldn’t find access to a physiotherapist or TCM doctor specialising in acupuncture.

My husband’s secretary recommended that I try a very reputable, local TCM hospital. It was a China experience that will certainly remain in my memory though for all the wrong reasons. Despite my good Chinese skills, I found it extremely hard to communicate mainly because I wasn’t aware of how the local hospital system works. The woman at the nurses’ station, while using an ear-picker, told me that I couldn’t be treated with acupuncture as I hadn’t had such treatment before. So I was then given a ticket to see a tuina, or massage, doctor, who was massaging about five people at once and having conversations with about ten other onlookers in one big room. It wasn’t only the lack of privacy that bothered me, cleanliness was also an issue and other people kept on overtaking me in the queue. When I queried this, the nurse told me that they were all patients who had records at the hospital. Since I was a new patient, I had to wait until old patients, even if they had arrived after me, had seen the doctor. After two hours, I gave up on the wait and headed home, still in pain.

My husband came back the next day and a former colleague of his recommended someone that could help me. Three tiny needles in my neck for a couple of minutes and some manipulation was all it took to stop the constant stabbing pain in my head. In fact, my speedy recovery allowed me to run a half marathon race that I had been training all winter just a couple of days later.

While I was at pharmacy college, it was ingrained in me that Western medicine was the superior form of treatment. However, when I practised as a community pharmacist, its limitations became increasingly obvious. Before coming to China, years of unresolved eczema had prompted me to visit a TCM doctor in Melbourne, who after prescribing two courses of unpalatable herbal medicine was able to get my skin under control, something bucket loads of corticosteroid creams were unable to do.

“The biggest advantage of combining modern and traditional methods of healing is there are more ways to analyse the patient, not just the disease, and more therapeutic options,” says Mark Wu, a second generation Australian Chinese who trained in Sydney as a physiotherapist and TCM practitioner and now works at Shanghai’s WA Optimum Health Care.

“Complementary therapies are used more in chronic and functional disorders where the conventional medical model falls short of offering a good explanation or treatment, for example, irritable bowel syndrome, and there is increasing scientific evidence that shows their benefits. I find combinations usually work better than either one alone,” Wu adds.

My TCM experiences, when I’ve been treated, have been quite positive but like Western medicine, there are good doctors and there are not so good ones around. I shouldn’t have assumed that just because China is the home of TCM, there is an overwhelming abundance of good TCM practitioners or practitioners that expats would feel comfortable with.

Wu has some tips for expats seeking out TCM treatment in China.

1. Word of mouth referral is a good starting point. Ask your doctor, pharmacist, friends or family for positive recommendations.

2. Do an online search about the therapy, practitioner or clinic in question.

3. Communication is essential for correct diagnosis and treatment. Ask a trusted friend to translate your symptoms into Chinese if language is not your strength.

4. Know what you are in for. If possible, call and ask to speak to the particular practitioner about his/her experience with your type of condition, what the treatment entails, and ask for a realistic expectation of treatment outcome.

5. Be wary of over the top claims (e.g. to cure cancer). If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

6. Read your health insurance policy as many policies do cover therapies such as acupuncture, and have direct-billing arrangements with qualified providers. ■