The Eroding Value of Doctors and Medical Professionals
There are two professions that we cannot just do without. Doctors and Lawyers. At some point in all our lives, we would have interacted with one or the other, some more and some less. Though Doctors are mostly our saviors in times of urgent need, Lawyers are only sometimes our guardian angel. They mostly serve to wrinkle out a few creases in the fabric called life.
Today, I am going to share my experiences of with the Medical profession, including Doctors. Only recently, my 65-year-old mother was admitted to a spanking new and luxurious-looking private hospital, with a left femur neck fracture.
She was operated upon and was in the hospital for about 16 days. She is also a diabetic, and her blood sugar levels kept going up and down, sometimes alarmingly.
However, all went well, and she was duly discharged with some pretty heavy-duty Titanium alloy supporting her weakening bones. The shocker, though, was in the bill that they gave me!
Not only was the total amount staggering, but the detailed bill listed items that couldn’t be verified, at least not by me or my mother! They even charged a bedpan to the bill along with hand soaps and gloves so numerous that it probably totaled their entire week’s inventory!!
And the quantity of medicines couldn’t be verified either, like so many other things, possibly inflated with no way of verification/ratification.
The OT rent and the surgeon’s fees alone equaled one month’s pay of a mid-level private sector executive, and it was all of 2.5 hours. Little wonder then that hospitals and schools are such lucrative businesses, social service be damned. Smiling portraits of the founding fathers of these schools and hospitals adorn prominent places on their lobby walls.
They smile smugly and benignly upon you, they are not there for the social benefit, but for the low/non-existent taxation and unparalleled profit margins.
Medical insurance providers are also aware of this practice of inflating bills, but little can be done due to lax regulation and a lack of intent to persevere, prosecute, and change things. So on goes the malpractice, fattening the purses of the owners and fleecing the hapless and helpless populace.
Doctors are also a part of this vicious circle, willingly or succumbing to systemic pressure (or so they say).
Prescribing medicines like they were sugar crystals, preferring the pharma company which is sponsoring their next trip to Las Vegas (for a medical conference on the evil effects of Gambling on the lower spine), or sucking up to the hospital management by inflating charges and procedures.
In pregnancies, they wouldn’t even try for a natural delivery, quoting confusing medical terms and scaring the living daylights out of the would-be parents. So, caesarian section, it is. More money that way, you see.
We generally do not overpay for hotels, Restaurants, Trains, Planes, etc. (it is another story that the charges quoted may not justify the service you receive). But more often than not, you don’t come away feeling so absolutely cheated as you do from one of these hospitals.
More so because one is inclined not to challenge the opinion or the solution, purely based on the cost involved, as the scenario is way beyond the layman’s understanding or comprehension.
Hence, we do not challenge but grudgingly pay up, and the scam moves on to its next victim. It is way past high time that political and medical authorities did something about it, put an end to this miserable and shameful practice.
Return the Nobility to the medical profession, do not let it transform into a greedy and sleazy occupation, which cheats to treat.
I've experienced such unfeeling attitude of doctors on several occasions. Although not all doctors are of the same type, there are many who are following the path as you have described. It reminds me of Daktar, O Daktar – the song by Nachiketa Chakraborty. It's a matter of concern that we as a whole are part of this defective system. When our children shine in Class 10 exam, we start a procession on highways to celebrate their results, we only tell them to become doctors and engineers and never tell them to take up some social services as professions. No doubt, it's not bad to tell them to become doctors and engineers but what we lack is we don't tell them to become a doctor to serve the society. Swami Vivekananda's message 'Education should be man making' is the urgent need of the day.
I agree that all Doctors are not the same, only those in Corporate Hospitals behave like leeches, intent only on increasing business and not on patient care. Sometimes it reaches inhuman levels!