It’s exactly a month and a day ago that our nine year old daughter complained her ear was hurting, and it’s exactly a month to the day that she underwent a minor operation. No, it wasn’t an emergency, just the way things are done here if you have either money or medical insurance. The GP thought the swelling in our daughter’s ear had not responded to antibiotics and sent her to the hospital at the bottom of our road, with a referral to an ENT specialist. We saw Mr Tey within twenty minutes of arriving and, when he advised us to have the swelling excised, we felt completely confident. Indeed, he offered to do it that afternoon, but we thought we needed to prepare the patient!

Next day at 8am, we registered and paid £400 upfront on a credit card. We were taken to an empty 4 bed ward on the children’s floor, given the requisite gown and cap and then taken to the room where patients are prepped for surgery. Obviously our daughter was really bewildered and somewhat scared by all this, but everything went smoothly and she was soon back on the ward. Things are different, the specialist explained, here in Malaysia. For a start, parents and relatives are not allowed beyond a certain point, so cannot stay with the patient whilst they are anaesthetized, neither are they able to be there when the patient first wakes up. It would have been helpful to have been forewarned of this, but it turned out not t be a big issue.

In order to claim on insurance, the patient must spend at least 6 hours in the hospital. We were able to leave just after 2pm, having coughed up a further £300 and been given antibiotics from the in-house pharmacy. Malaysians tend to take antibiotics as a preventative measure: we decided not to dose our daughter unless she needed it. (She didn’t.) The lunch was a very spicy fish curry, so not at all to a Western child’s taste. I’m afraid we scurried across the road to McDonald’s for chicken burgers to keep the patient happy! 

Apart from the cost and the ongoing palaver with the insurance company who (surprise surprise) do not want to reimburse us, our experience was good. The speed at which our minor problem was tackled was so different to similar situations in the NHS. We felt any potential problems were nipped in the bud, rather than allowed to fester and worsen. On the follow-up visit to remove stitches, Mr Tey was a little late seeing us, but not by much. Our daughter can now boast of having had a general anaesthetic abroad, and of having coped very well.

This modern hospital was immaculately clean and tidy. We were treated with courtesy and people went out of their way to explain procedures and protocol to us. Our ENT specialist was an Oxford graduate with his clinical training etc undertaken in the UK. He had very fond memories of his studies and was delighted to have a chance to ‘catch up’ with expats. All in all, this still developing country did us proud and has provided us with very high standards with which to compare the care our families back in the UK receive.