Claire's Medical fund

Our friend Claire Courtney is from Perth in Scotland, She loves life and loves the world. She was a dance teacher in Perth for a number of years but felt that she had more to give, so, she decided to create a new challenge in her life. 
        Claire wanted to see the world and find something she could test herself, so Claire found a great opportunity to incorporate these two challenges, travel and teaching. Claire came to Beijing last August on a teaching internship. I must point out at this point that Claire was not a fan of kids at the time but felt she could grow to like them.  After the internship finished and many people left for home, Claire stayed. She loved it that much that she is now a full time teacher, renting an apartment with her friend Orlaith and enjoying the new cultureal experiences and life challenges.


The reason for this page is that Claire unexpectedly fell sick with appendicitis this week and is in hospital recovering after an operation. This seems all normal and happily the operation has gone well, BUT, with China, a lot of things are different and this is the main reason we are setting this page up.  Claire has been moved four times to different hospitals; the Ambulance charges are like taxi's so she was getting charged for each move by the meter,  the rental of a bed by the hour is 50RMB (5.50GBP per hour equivelant), the tests are paid as you go. Claire had two CT scans, three Ultrasounds,  two blood tests, and two gynaecology exams over the course of the  four hospitals in two days. Although you rent the bed by the hour, you do not get help moving to different wards or hospitals. This had to be arranged by Claires housemate Orlaith and Claire's boyfriend Sam. Its like a game here in China and this is all on the say so of a doctor, if you dont get what they ask for, you dont get to the next level.   At the third hospital Claire was quoted at 200,000 RMB for the operation to remove the appendix, so the cheaper option was to pay for the ambulance again and move to a hospital the other side of the city and get the operation done at a cheaper rate.

So while Claire see's out her recovery in hospital, we have decided to help out as much as we can, the first thing we thought  of was to check the travel health insurance, unfortunatly the timing was not on our side.  Claires insurance ended 6 days before Claire got sick, although we were hoping this would help cover her, she can't fall back on this. Claire does not get sick pay with work and there is no insurance through work either,  so she will be off work without pay for a while and the cost of bills alone are totalling around 40000 RMB (4600 GBP equivalent), this does not include loss of wages.

We would all like to ask for your help, anything at all that you can do to reduce the cost of this bill will be very much appreciated.  Thankyou

Also its Claires birthday on the 12th of July, its not really a good time for her. Please help