Politics in Medicine

Posted by Prudence on June 13, 2007 · Leave a Comment

One part of my work I hate is being caught between clashing rocks: a private hospital wary about admitting indigent patients and cautioning their doctors from doing so, instructing them to direct these patients to government hospitals as much as possible, and patients and their relatives who’d stubbornly insist on being admitted/treated in an expensive, private hospital despite being warned about the estimated cost, being obviously with financial constraints. Being put in the middle of this often ferocious haggling (since nobody would want to give in) just puts unnecessary stress on the doctor involved whose main job ought to be just the active management of the patient. After all, he’s just the doctor and not the hospital administrator.

Such an occurrence again happened to my 24-hour duty last Sunday.

At around 9 PM, we, at the ER, heard some shouting outside the hospital lobby doors. Minutes after, the security guard saw four seemingly drunk males walking the length of the driveway leading up to the emergency room. When the strangers got close to the ER doors, we saw they were all apparently victims of stabbing, clutching their abdomens. Two were almost collapsing on one another and one half-carried, half-dragged his companion. We quickly pulled out the stretchers.

Tom (not his real name), the one half-carried and half-dragged, was dead on arrival. His guts were spilling out from the 3- to 4-inch wide stab wound in his abdomen, just above the umbilicus. CPR was attempted but soon he was pronounced dead.

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