Sooner or later most of us have to seek medical attention. And it is during those times that those who can ill afford more pressure on their shrinking wallets resort to treatment at government hospitals.
The many tales of woe and shoddy treatment at these institutions should prompt the Ministry of Health to sit up and take notice. From inadequate facilities to faulty diagnosis, many a patient is left wanting for suitable medical care.
And what about the privately run hospitals? Well, let me begin by saying that these hospitals have become big business. The bottom line is profit, the ignoble pursuit of wealth. Proper care and a speedy recovery are often an afterthought.
After all, how is any hospital expected to recoup its expenditure on interior decoration worthy of any five-star hotel in the Far East? Let the patient pay for it!
These hospitals spend big bucks on facilities and equipment; yet uphold an unwritten policy of hiring cheap. The old adage that “when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” applies in some of these cases.
The income of doctors and supporting staff is often governed by their ability to sell unneeded services. Multi-testing is conducted for the simplest symptoms. Medicines are prescribed without proper understanding of their effects. In fact, a few doctors are ardent salesmen of pharmaceutical companies.
We are slowly being transformed into pill poppers, a people who will not be properly satisfied unless we walk out with a prescription slip for no less than five or six different medicines. Anything less and we look upon the doctor with displeasure.
In the area of mental health, there has been considerable harm done to many of us. Hazardous mind-altering drugs are so quickly and frequently prescribed, practically frying beyond recovery some of the brain cells in our skulls and resulting in total patient dependency. Qualified psychiatric care is virtually non-existent in these institutions.
And as long as some doctors and hospitals decree that when something goes wrong, it is “an act other than their own” we will continue to suffer. But once we have a strong malpractice mandate and the right to sue their pants off, house cleaning at these institutions will surely begin.
There are good and virtuous doctors out there. But faced with the pressure of recouping investments in “glitz” at these institutions, and having to process more patients per hour than is reasonable, these doctors lose out in the battle of substance vs. quota.
Many of you readers may at one time have grinned and borne it, but it is time that those entrusted with health legislation make it a point to minimize the impact of improper diagnosis on our community. All this for the pursuit of profit above everything else?
