Where are the good doctors?

Recently my son was quite ill. He had a fever of 39.7 degrees, diarrhoea and irritability that bordered on the bipolar, where one minute he was trying his best and the next he was screaming at the top of his lungs with streams of tears down his cheeks. When your child is sick, there is no other feeling like it. The feeling of helplessness and desperation and exhaustion was all I had, and my transformation of a generally happy-go-lucky type mum into a suspicious-lioness-protecting-its-cub-from-anything-that-moves took place.
After the second day of squirting baby paracetamol into Arvis' mouth and not seeing much improvement we decided to see the doctor. This was a mission because we never really registered him with any doctor in Mongolia since he arrived. And here are the problems with trying to get treatment here.

Like the GP system in the UK, everyone must register with their local district and khoroo to qualify for health, education, social and council services. We;re not registered at the the place we're living in becuase it doesn't belong to us and also because moving isn't just about packing up and leaving, then notifying your bank, tax office and maybe your magazine subscription. Because there's a monster of a citizen's databse that has everyone's infomration, enytime the slightest change happens you have to physically get your self out to the Citizen's Registration Centre, queue for hours on end and then be declared 'moved.' But that's the not the end, you then have to go to the disctrict and khoroo that you've moved to so that you can be registered with them and their services but only after you visited your previous khoroo to let them know that you're no longer in need of their services. All in all, we pay taxes so that we can run our own errands whilst the civil servants sit and watch you queue. This is just the tip of the iceberg though and I've diverted my ramble a bit.

Because of this problem of our's my mum, who used to be considered one of the best doctors in the city in her heyday, put us in touch with a paedetriction at her old hospital. She's the best paedatricion apparently and my mum asked her to see Arvis if he needs it. You have to know people to get the best services you can possibly get and if that fails, know someone who knows a lot of people. I mean good in two basic meanings-capable and trustworthy. There are shortages of these good people-doctors/teachers/engineers/whatever that you need, those with the resources usually hog their time and their lack of accesibility to those with less financial means or less conncted creates a truly divided society. And as Mongolians say, a knife has two edges, eventually even those good people become bad as their demand increases their price or worse reduces their value (as in they become moneymakers foremost).

Our paedatrician was not working privately, but remained in the state hospital, and although she was capable I had no trust. At that point I did not trust many people, and was always skeptical of doctors who prescribed anti-biotics as the first choice of medicine. But we were despearte and after two days of giving him the meds he was still not better. I decided it was time to start calling around and asking 'Where are the good doctors?'

A good friend of mine suggested a doctor she takes her daughter to and by then we both thought a private doctor will be better than the state docotr-why? Because we're at least paying the price of their consultation and time, rather than depending on their goodwill. And the doctor was pretty good because she conducted a very thorough examination in a very child friendly and bright clinic, and said that she doesn't want to rpescribe anything as he's in no real danger, just carry on with the paracetamol and stop the anti-biotics because it may be poisoning him more than anything. Perhaps it was the toys and bright wallpaper, perhaps it was hearing that he will be ok, or perhaps it was because I had a feeling about her. Whatever happened, I was immediately put to rest and felt so much lighter. When it comes to illnesses and your child you never know what is the right thing to do, except to look for a recommended doctor and trust in your instinct, then stick to them when you find them! You can never tell if a doctor is good (in both senses) or not for sure, be it in Mongolia or elsewhere in the world, and the scary thing is to put your trust in them. I know that we'll all need doctors at some point, no matter how healthy a lifestyle we live, and when we do, I hope their goodwill hasn't run out.