Finally I decided to go to a private hospital on 23rd August. I choose Island Hospital because it is the only private hospital in Penang who provides the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test!! You can choose to have your blood drawn in other hospitals like Pantai Hospital but they will still send your blood to the laboratory in Island Hospital for them to conduct the test. So I thought I might as well see a doctor in Island Hospital if the test is only provided there.
Thankfully there is a respiratory specialist in Island Hospital. Certain other private hospitals in Penang do not have any respiratory specialist.
The respiratory specialist in Island is Dr L. She seems to be a nice doctor. As usual, she listened to my breathing through the stethoscope, check my temperature, check my body, check my lymph nodes etc etc... Unfortunately, I couldn't show my x-ray to her because the General Hospital was keeping my x-ray and they earlier refused my requests to take it out, even temporarily. What I have to do is to buy the x-ray out from General Hospital and I had to pay RM50 to make it mine.
On that same day after I have managed to buy out the x-ray from GH, I went back to Island Hospital to show it to her. She looked at it and said that it looks like an infection and she advised me to do the bronchoscopy. Yikesss...bronchoscopy.
Trying to avoid the bronchoscopy I said that I will do the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test first and we will see from there. In Island Hospital, the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test is only performed every Wednesday to keep costs low to make it affordable to the patients. So the doctor told me that I have to come back the next day which is a Tuesday to have my blood drawn so that they can do the test on Wednesday.
Anyway, the consultation fee is RM80! And they charged registration fee at RM15!
Total bill = RM95. Everything lasted just about an hour. What a lucrative business. Hmmm.....I think I should have studied medicine 10 years ago.
The next day on 24th August, I went to the Hospital again to have my blood drawn. People will always say that taking a blood test is not painful, just like a bite of an ant. Nooooo....it is painful! Even an ant bite is painful! The pain maybe lasted for 20-30 seconds I think, but it is still painful. The cost for the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test is RM310. Wow!! I could have bought three textbooks for that. I have so many books on my wishlist that I wanted to buy and RM310 is gone.
I was anxious to know the blood test results. Could I have TB? I will see the doctor again on 26th August to find out the results.
Thankfully there is a respiratory specialist in Island Hospital. Certain other private hospitals in Penang do not have any respiratory specialist.
The respiratory specialist in Island is Dr L. She seems to be a nice doctor. As usual, she listened to my breathing through the stethoscope, check my temperature, check my body, check my lymph nodes etc etc... Unfortunately, I couldn't show my x-ray to her because the General Hospital was keeping my x-ray and they earlier refused my requests to take it out, even temporarily. What I have to do is to buy the x-ray out from General Hospital and I had to pay RM50 to make it mine.
On that same day after I have managed to buy out the x-ray from GH, I went back to Island Hospital to show it to her. She looked at it and said that it looks like an infection and she advised me to do the bronchoscopy. Yikesss...bronchoscopy.
Trying to avoid the bronchoscopy I said that I will do the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test first and we will see from there. In Island Hospital, the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test is only performed every Wednesday to keep costs low to make it affordable to the patients. So the doctor told me that I have to come back the next day which is a Tuesday to have my blood drawn so that they can do the test on Wednesday.
Anyway, the consultation fee is RM80! And they charged registration fee at RM15!
Total bill = RM95. Everything lasted just about an hour. What a lucrative business. Hmmm.....I think I should have studied medicine 10 years ago.
The next day on 24th August, I went to the Hospital again to have my blood drawn. People will always say that taking a blood test is not painful, just like a bite of an ant. Nooooo....it is painful! Even an ant bite is painful! The pain maybe lasted for 20-30 seconds I think, but it is still painful. The cost for the QuantiFERON TB Gold blood test is RM310. Wow!! I could have bought three textbooks for that. I have so many books on my wishlist that I wanted to buy and RM310 is gone.
I was anxious to know the blood test results. Could I have TB? I will see the doctor again on 26th August to find out the results.
1 comment:
Hi,may i know how's your lungs condition now?
My mother in law went through the same situation and tests as you. Treated by same doctor ;).Unfortunately
The Dr,do not know how to cure her and has
been performing trial and error diagnosis on
This 70 year old lady.
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