Chapter 97: Patient runs off without paying!
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Back at Shao Hua’s home, there was an issue of where to let the drunk Zhang Fan sleep. There were only two bedrooms. It would obviously be quite inappropriate to let him sleep in Shao Hua’s bedroom, and letting him sleep in the living room would also be rude. Shao Hua’s mother said to her husband, “You sleep in the living room, and I’ll sleep together with Hua tonight.”
“Just let him sleep it off for a while. He barely drank anything, so maybe he’ll be awake soon. I never thought that he would have such low alcohol tolerance, haha!” Shao Hua’s father was actually quite enjoying the situation now.
“You still dare to laugh!”
Shao Hua wetted her personal towel and wiped Zhang Fan’s face with it. She also placed a cup of water on the bedside table for when he woke up. “Sigh! He’s such a fool!” She recalled her first meeting with Zhang Fan. “Hello, I’m Zhang Fan. Zhang from Zhang Fei, Fan from the Chinese character for ordinary.
“Would you be willing to be my girlfriend?
“Beautiful, really beautiful.”
Shao Hua sat by Zhang Fan’s side and chuckled foolishly as she recalled his stupid behavior. Not long after, she heard her father coughing extremely loudly in an obviously intentional manner. Shao Hua smiled helplessly and left her parents’ bedroom. Her parents were currently watching TV in the living room, but were actually more focused on listening to what was going on in their bedroom.
“Relax, our bed is pretty big. He won’t fall out from it.”
Shao Hua’s father’s comment made her entire face go red, and Shao Hua’s mother shoved her husband slightly. “Properly watch your TV. If you won’t watch TV, then go out for a walk.”
Shao Hua’s father indeed got up to go out for a walk, leaving mother and daughter alone for some conversation time. After he left, Shao Hua’s mother said to Shao Hua, “If the two of you want to have a relationship, then properly go out with him as his girlfriend and take care of each other. It’s probably not easy for Zhang Fan, being out here by himself. But as you’re a girl, you can’t have sex with him so easily.”
“Mom!”
“Haha, I believe in my Hua. But, I also know that women are naturally soft-hearted and easily fall prey to sweet words. Unless you’re at the point of marriage, you absolutely can’t give yourself so easily, which will make others look down on you.”
These were the worries of a parent. Marriage was similar to a gamble, and the most worried would be the parents. Oftentimes, the potential success of a marriage would truly be unpredictable.
Zhang Fan woke up at 11 pm, right when Shao Hua and her parents had finished washing up and were preparing to go to sleep. Zhang Fan’s metabolism had already cleared out the alcohol from his system. That was just how his body was. Although he would get drunk swiftly, he would also swiftly wake up afterwards.
He shook his head, checked the time, and walked out of the master bedroom. Shao Hua heard noises from the master bedroom and hurriedly exited the bathroom. She had just finished a shower, and her hair was still wet. Zhang Fan paused in astonishment upon seeing her clean face and suddenly blinking large eyes.
“Are you alright now? Have some water.” Shao Hua felt really embarrassed about how Zhang Fan kept staring at her, so she hurriedly pushed him away slightly.
“I, I’m fine! Um, how about I leave now?” Actually, he didn’t really want to leave. He was definitely shameless enough to stay.
“Little Zhang, you’ve woken up? You barely got a chance to eat dinner. Let me cook some noodles for you. Have some food, otherwise it’ll be bad for your stomach.” Shao Hua’s mother also arrived.
“No need to trouble yourself like that, Ma’am. I’ll just go back home and eat there. I’m so sorry about today.”
“It’s fine. As long as you’re not an alcoholic and you don’t have a temper when drunk, the way you are is fine. There’s nothing wrong with falling asleep when drunk. Let my wife cook some noodles for you.” Shao Hua’s father now had a much friendlier expression.
Shao Hua’s mother cooked a bowl of noodles for Zhang Fan. The noodles contained two eggs, along with some meat and vegetables. Zhang Fan ravenously devoured it all, not leaving even a single drop of soup. But after he finished eating, he was forced to leave. Shao Hua’s family only had two bedrooms, after all. Where was he supposed to sleep? Shao Hua hurriedly put on a jacket as she walked together with Zhang Fan outside.
“Be careful going back home. You should just take a taxi. Text me when you safely arrive.” Shao Hua watched Zhang Fan leave before she went back upstairs into the apartment building. Zhang Fan’s irregular actions had indeed successfully helped the relationship progress rapidly.
Zhang Fan felt that this night was particularly beautiful, filled with stars everywhere. The advantage of being in a smaller and more rural area in China would be having less pollution. Since Zhang Fan was in a great mood, everything seemed wonderful to him. Even the ordinary trash cans on the roadside seemed rather exquisite to him.
Early next morning, an emergency patient arrived at the dermatology department. It was a girl who was about 18 or 19 years old. She had been drinking together with her friends at night, but in the next morning, when everyone woke up from their hangovers, she had an argument with a female friend of hers that became a physical altercation. A sharp weapon injured her face.
A group of youngsters who had dyed hair had brought her to the hospital. Her friends then all scattered. The young woman kept crying constantly. Blood had already soaked through the white paper towels pressed against her head. The blood slowly dripped as she constantly cried, “My looks are ruined! My looks are ruined!”
Normally, the emergency department would treat such an injury if it wasn’t for the fact that it was on the girl’s face. Usually, the dermatology department wouldn’t even be called, but since the injury was on the face, the emergency department’s simple sutures would usually leave a scar behind that would seem like a large worm on the girl’s face as the scar deepened in color due to pigmentation.
Zhang Fan was the first to arrive early in the morning, so he accepted the emergency patient. “Young lady, please don’t cry. Where’s your family at?” A surgery would usually require a family member’s signature.
“They’re not in Chasu City!”
“Where are they?”
“In Bluebird City!”
“Would you like to file a police report regarding your injury?”
“No! No need.”
Since there were no family members to sign for the young woman, she had to sign the paperwork herself. She was a student at a vocational school in Chasu City. She usually loved to party, and her friends were the really unreliable sort.
A surgery like the one she required would typically involve local anesthesia, which would have average effects. Sewing the sutures would also have to be completed quickly, otherwise the injury would start to swell. Sewing the injury after it began to swell would cause more obvious scarring. The slash injury on the girl’s face was about four centimeters long. Zhang Fan began by disinfecting and cleaning her injury. He even discovered a small shard of glass in her wound. Since anesthesia couldn’t be applied during this process, the girl was in such pain that she constantly trembled.
The anesthesia medication being used was Lidocaine. A veteran dermatologist, attending physician Qimig, arrived at this time. “Doctor Zhang, you’re quite skilled with your hands. Have you ever done cosmetic sutures before?”
“I’ve done them countless times.”
“Alright, you go ahead and be in charge of this surgery. I’ll be your surgical assistant.”
Although the young woman was in pain, with tears in her eyes, she still didn’t forget to say, “Brother, please make me look beautiful again when sewing me up! Wahhh!” She was both in pain and feeling sad for herself, and could barely even catch her breath.
“Stop crying! Just look at yourself, panting like that. How are we supposed to sew you up? If you keep crying, we’ll sew a large bump for you, and make you look like a cow!” Doctor Qimig intentionally tried to scare her. Since being nice didn’t seem to work, he decided to try and pretend to be a bad guy. Otherwise, the patient would only constantly cry and tremble, which would make the sewing far more difficult.
The type of suture the patient received was also known as a mattress suture. It was a sewing style where the thread was mostly threaded through the skin layers rather than the epidermis so that as little scarring as possible would remain on the skin’s surface. The thread being used was also absorbable suture thread.
Speaking of absorbable suture threads, they were really quite expensive because of patents despite just being simple threads. A regular absorbable suture thread of about 50 centimeters long would cost a bit over 700 yuan. For the highest-quality absorbable suture threads, the cost would even surpass 10,000 yuan. However, regular hospitals like Chasu City Hospital would rarely import such suture threads. It would mostly only be cosmetic surgeons who would import the highest-quality absorbable suture threads. The effects of such suture threads would be different for every person.
The young woman had been injured more than three hours before she finally arrived at the hospital. All she had with her was her student ID and her cell phone. She had no money on her!
Zhang Fan didn’t want the young woman to suffer permanent scarring in the future, which was why he had performed the skin wound closure surgery for her as quickly as possible. He didn’t need to go to one of the operating rooms for this, as the dermatology department had its own room for performing surgical sutures.
The young woman had promised nicely that she would immediately have her parents bring money to the hospital after her surgery was completed to pay for her hospital fees. Zhang Fan was inexperienced, so he immediately started the surgery for her after hearing this. After he finished the surgery successfully, he told the young woman to go wait for him in a patient room while he wrote the medical report.
When Zhang Fan finished the medical report, he checked the patient room, and found that it was empty! He asked a nurse, and was told that the young woman was supposedly making a phone call outside. But, when Zhang Fan searched around, he couldn’t find her at all! Zhang Fan could only stand still with mouth agape. Doctor Qimig saw him at this time, and looked all around before asking Zhang Fan, “What’s the matter?”
“That young woman didn’t pay her medical fees, or get her shots. She ran off before even getting a tetanus shot. What are we supposed to do if something happens to her?!”
“It should be fine. Her wound wasn’t deep. It was just a slash injury caused by a beer bottle, so it should be fine. I was under the impression that she had paid her medical fees already. Let’s get going. There’s no need to try and look for her anymore. Let’s check how much her medical fees were.”
They returned to the dermatology department and calculated the young woman’s medical fees, which amounted to a bit more than 3000 yuan. Director Gulnazar learned of the matter of the patient who ran away without paying when she came in for work at noon. She told Zhang Fan and Doctor Qimig, “No need to worry about the patient’s medical fee. I’ll pay for it by using the dermatology department’s medical equipment kickback fees. The department will pay for 70%, Doctor Qimig will pay for 20% as the attending physician, and Doctor Zhang will pay for 10% for accepting the patient. Although it’s not anyone’s fault that the patient ran off without paying, you still need to remember to register patients properly first before performing surgery. These are the hospital’s rules, so we should obey them. The hospital’s rules are there to make you responsible for the patient as well as to protect you doctors.”
Zhang Fan adamantly insisted on paying an additional 20%, not allowing Doctor Qimig to pay for his mistake. He believed that he deserved to bear the full brunt of his own mistake. In China, there would be countless patients arriving at hospitals every day. The doctors would refuse to treat them unless the patients paid first. Thus, the patients would often feel that the doctors were blackhearted. This really couldn’t be helped. Just like the patients, the doctors also needed to work hard in order to make a living. A doctor would easily go broke just by meeting three patients who ran off without paying their medical bills in one day.
Although, if such incidents happened too much, the hospital could also apply for governmental financial assistance.
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