Foreigners who had joined the trend to explore their opportunities in China's capital Beijing increasingly found that seeking heath care at a hospital was an uncomfortable experience.

Among others, their complaints included that few staffers at local hospitals could speak foreign languages and the procedure of seeing a doctor was complicated.

In a move to coincide with Beijing's step towards becoming an international metropolis, local authorities have vowed to improve health care for foreigners.

"Marathon" At Hospitals

Park, 30, of South Korea, has been a student in Beijing for six years. He said he was scared of the marathon-style procedure while seeing a doctor at a Beijing hospital.

"It starts with a time-consuming registration session, and then I need to go all around, with a lot of forms in hand" in the hospital, crowded like a train station, he said.

Park said he could not make himself clear to doctors and nurses sometimes, like when a stomachache was very painful.

And for even a single health check-up, he said he needed to go through a complicated process concerning payments, prescription forms, and shifting between different departments of the hospital. "I won't see a doctor for small illnesses like a foot sprain here, and if an operation is necessary, I will go back to South Korea," Park said.

Some foreigners believed that many government-funded hospitals in China were marked with uncomfortable facilities, atmosphere and ignorance towards privacy of patients, according to a survey.

The survey, conducted by Wang Yongguang, head of the Institute for Minimally Invasive Medicine of Tongji University, further revealed that the quality of services at private medical units were worrisome in the eyes of many foreigners.

Frowning on the medical services in China, many foreigners choose to go back to their homelands or to other countries for medical treatment.

Gao Jinsong, a senior executive with Det Norske Veritas (DNV) China, said his colleagues would have to go back to Britain or the United States to receive treatment for even small illnesses if China could not provide better health care for foreigners.

"That basically means more expenditure in time and costs," Gao said.