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Travel» WiFi

Hospital Wifi

I have been conspicuously absent from here and other ventures of late. A couple weeks ago my son came down with a high fever which after a couple of days resulted in febrile convulsions. An overnight visit to the MacKay Hospital (Hsinchu) ER seemed to stabilize him but some of his blood work showed evidence of a bacterial infection. That meant another night in the ER and a fews days in a special observation ward. Luckily it turned out to be not at all that serious but it was certainly one of the worst weeks I have ever had. Since then things have been slowly returning to normal and luckily for the most part my clients have been understanding of the delays.

If you have ever been in a similar situation you probably realize that you need to understand the problem and make a decision on a doctors recommendation as quickly as possible. I'm not one for automatically trusting any 'expert' without gaining some background knowledge with the purpose of at the very least being able to ask pointed questions. That's where having access to the web can be a godsend. And that's where this hospital completely broke down. In a country with close to the highest broadband penetration in the world, MacKay Hospital in Hsinchu locks down all it's wireless networks to those who are in single rooms only - which are not always available (we were in a double).

In situations like this access to information is not a luxury but a right. I would hope that hospitals everywhere would realize just how important and just how effective this can be in terms of overall patient care.

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