Echoing What’s Important To You

Being in a hospital is depressing, no doubt. Being in a high dependency unit or an intensive care unit is more depressing. Everyday we see people being carried out of the wards – some are headed to the normal wards, some are lucky enough to be discharged with a clean bill of health, while the unfortunate ones are headed to the mortuary. And at the end of the day, no matter what the cause, the only reply people get is “Sorry, we did our best.”

To me, that doesn’t suffice.

Whenever it comes to DNA probing, we seem to be champions. Yes, even results can be tainted sometimes. But let’s face it: our hospitals – government and private – often lack substance. There’s a whole lot of revamping to be done, and I wonder how long that’s going to take. Perhaps, the next election manifesto should be a promise to revamp the medical profession in Malaysia. And here’s why:

Firstly, we take a look at the majority of our doctors and nurses. We all know that medicine is a vocation, not something we do for glamor. True, some are called to the profession. But sadly, many aren’t. I’m not writing this based on hearsay, but based on real experiences. Many times, nurses would exercise their routines by force so much so that the patient feels pain, starts bleeding, or something untoward happens. When something adverse happens, they just step back (despite us knowing that they were the cause of the problem). Sometimes, their exclamations are just not called for – phrases like “kau bernafas macam hantu” (you’re breathing like a ghost), for example, when we know the person has some form of secretion or obstruction. This happens especially in the high dependency unit, where nurses are paid more lavishly than in the normal ward. Are they doing this just for the greenbacks?

Secondly, many of the doctors have an insupportable attitude – for lack of a better word. They diagnose the patient, they jump to conclusions, and they proceed with it, without even asking or telling the patient anything. And those plans don’t always work out. Sometimes, the patient suffers as a result. Take the case of someone whom I happened to see – she is highly dependent on the ventilator. She had a tracheotomy. The doctors were attempting to wean her off the ventilator as fast as possible, but they did it the wrong way – for the first day, it was two hours off the ventilator, for the second day, sixteen hours, and for the third day, more than 24 hours! She kept on complaining that she couldn’t breathe, but no one listened. The logic behind this case is simple: whenever someone complains of a stomachache, you don’t treat him for a heart problem. Our doctors are doing the exact opposite! Also, that was a rather improper way to wean the patient off the ventilator. It has to be done progressively.

Perhaps, they are faced with an increasing number of patients, and a lack of beds in the intensive care/high dependency unit. They would do all they can to get the patients out (and as I said earlier, some are lucky enough to be shifted to the normal ward, let alone get discharged) – many of them end up dying.

Thirdly, many doctors and nurses have the typical Malaysian complex, which poses a danger to the medical profession – they wait for adverse consequences before they can even think of acting. I have witnessed several cases like these in the high dependency unit (where this shouldn’t be happening) – in one of those cases, someone complained of breathing problems; the doctors and nurses didn’t even care. It is only when the patient’s oxygen level desaturated, when his heart rate plunged below 40 (almost as good as dead), when he suffered from severe apnea and started foaming in the mouth – that was when the doctors came crowding round the patient to revive him. His relatives happened to be there, and they were persuading the doctors to pay attention. The problem with many of us – and I mean our kind – when we are in power, we tend to forget what laymen say. Same applies for politicians, lawyers, the like. However, when we are dealing with the medical profession, we are dealing with people’s lives. At the end of the day, when they are ignorant to laymen, and something untoward happens (touch wood!), the only answer we get is “Sorry, we did our best.”

I don’t think that’s good enough. The individual’s life cannot be brought back, and that in itself is a great loss to the family. In fact, those who really want to probe into the cause of the death would start considering post-mortem as one of their core actions.

Then, we look at the contrast in price between the government hospitals and the private hospitals. Private hospitals tend to charge more because they apparently give more TLC to the patients compared to government hospitals. That is not always the case. The thing about many private hospitals in Malaysia is that when they know you’re covered, they rip you off. All you need is an insurance policy and they start hammering you with medical bills, cheating you every step of the way. There only needs to be ten signatures from the doctor per day to charge a humongous amount of money. And when we mention “private hospital,” we have to be well aware of the unnecessary tests that come with it. CT scans cost a lot. They have no qualms about having three or four CT scans within two weeks. The ventilators and other equipment which are necessary to sustain the patient – all these are put on a minimal level so the patient can survive (even if there are no signs of him getting better).

I know that despite the current situation, there are doctors and nurses who are true to their profession – but then again, they are few and far between.

So, you can imagine how being in hospitals can be so depressing – not only for the patient, but for everyone. Anyone who is sick would surely go to a hospital with the hope of recovering. Doctors need to start treating patients as people, as individuals, not as problems. Then, and only then, will we see a marked improvement in the medical profession in Malaysia.

To end, let me tell you the story of what an acquaintance of mine went through:

This guy is a priest. Many a time, he would help out in seeking out people with HIV/AIDS, or those being dogged by drugs and drink. He and a team of people would send them to hospitals. It so came to pass that he saw someone – a drug addict – lying on the road, still breathing, but in a dismal state. Not only did he have scabs all over his body, he was covered with feces. The team picked up the insupportable man, laid him on a stretcher, and went to the nearby hospital. As they approached the emergency room, the guard on duty said, “Why are you bringing this piece of junk here?”

The priest told the security guard bluntly, “He’s a person, not a problem. You are the problem.”

DISCLAIMER: By writing this article I do not wish to lash out at the mistakes the doctors have made. This article only serves as a wake-up call. All cases mentioned here are kept private and confidential.