Medical Check

I'm in the process of moving city & province in China. Not with standing the need to find a new house I need to complete all the formalities of new registration in a new city. Believe it or not, in China, this also means a new work permit and a new visa.

You would think that a Chinese Visa is a Chinese Visa - but no. It seems each City/Province needs to manage this separately. So although I only got a 1 year visa in May, I need a new Visa as I've moved.

Should be simple - of course not. Today was my medical. I need to get a basic medical check to show I'm healthy. The fact that I was healthy in Jiangsu, doesn't mean I'm healthy in Jiangxi it seems.

Now these medical checks are quite the machine - once you get through registration & paying.

We have help - from a local Visa consultant. We are told to be at the Jiangxi Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau for a 9am appointment. We are there 10mins early - our consultant turns up 10mins late.

We are prepared with our passports and empty stomach's.

"Do you have your Photo's? "

"Well no - you never asked us to bring them. "

Slight panic sets in to our consultant, but fortunately there is a photo booth, only issue is it's probably the first machine I've seen in China for years that doesn't take WeChat pay. And I don't carry cash anymore!

Between us we find enough for the Photos. So now we are ready. Well now we queue for 20mins to register. Guess what - they take new photos for this ! Never did work out why we needed the other photos.

Right - now for the medical ? No - queue to pay. Finally, 1hr after we arrived we can actually start the medical.

This is where the turbo machine cuts in.

We are whisked around a series of checks. They take blood. 3 phials, no care just tourniquet on, needle in. We then give urine - open pot, put in a tray with 20-30 other peoples. No chance of cross contamination there then.

We then get ECG's, ENT, X-Ray, Eye Sight, Ultrasound, Blood Pressure and Weight & Height. Not sure why they asked me to stand on the scales and then put my arms out and shut my eyes to check my weight and height. Does this change your weight or height?

I'm going to have to try that at home

All of this was done in under an hour ! Told you turbo machine. UK NHS - eat your heart out.

Results in 5 days. Hopefully I'm as healthy here as I was in Jiangsu.

#China