Source : Google photo of high cost ICU care
Synopsis : It is heart wrenching to watch poor people taken
advantage of by the doctors and hospitals that demand a high cost for the
medical care they provide and often do not accept government sponsored
insurance program so demand cash. Their inhumanity in insisting on monetary
gains over care and concern for their patients shows the degeneration of our
basic humanistic values.
I was walking with my wife in the neighborhood yesterday
when we heard a horrible scream coming from a house nearby. It did not stop for
a long time making us very nervous because we know them and wondered why there
was such a commotion. Only this morning we came to know that their youngest and
the prettiest daughter hung herself and was pronounced dead in the hospital.
The shylocks in the hospital charged the grieving parents one hundred dollars
just to give a death certificate which was so appalling that made me write this
blog. Their sheer inhumanity boggles the mind but that is how they make money
at the expense of the misery of others and feel no shame doing it.
Hospitals especially the private ones are known for their
greed and lack of compassion for their patients where they employ guards with
strict orders not to let any patient check out unless their bills are fully
paid dead or alive. It is the same hospital I had the misfortune to go to for
some minor ailment and where I saw the filth and smelled the stink of
cockroaches in the room but they charged me a huge amount for some Buscopan tablets
that cost pennies outside.
The food they served me was a bowl of yellow water called
soup and a 5 inch long boney fish with a bowl of poor quality rice I could not
eat. The bill for this poor quality food was extraordinary but that is how they
make money. The nurse counted and billed even a q tip that she used. My wife
was allowed to sleep in the room but they only provided her with a very narrow
hard wooden bench less than two feet wide with no mattress or a pillow so she
had to suffer a sleepless night as well.
This sort of poor quality hospital service is widespread here
where they refuse the government insurance and say that they accept only cash
that a patient must deposit before they let him stay there. Then a horde of
doctors start coming to check the patient and suggest numerous lab tests that
the patient must pay for plus the fee for all the doctors who make use of the
opportunity to make a lot of money quickly. They do not give the patient the
right to choose his own doctor or the laboratory tests he wants. These doctors
treat the patient as moron who must obey what he is told and just pay the cost.
I was so angry at their greed and poor service that I
checked out after just one day but the nurse asked me to sign a form letter
saying that the doctors are not responsible if anything happens to me later as
if they really cared. I promised myself that I will never visit that hospital
again even if I am very sick but all the hospitals here behave the same way. Before
a patient is checked into a hospital, he is asked to sign a form that states
that the doctors cannot be sued for malpractices.
In Haiti that is one of the poorest countries in the world, a doctor was found to be careless in operating on a patient leading to the death of the patient. So the enraged relatives came to kill the doctor who fled the town immediately and hid somewhere. This hospital was near my home and the careless nurse was my landlady who was also a very scandalous woman who stole all my kitchenware when I was leaving. May be the Haitians are right in taking the matter into their own hands. It certainly put fear into that doctor who botched up his operation so he fled with his tail between his legs.
I went to another hospital where an American woman was
admitted but she was given a very dirty room with a stinky mattress and a
filthy bed sheet on it so she sent me a message to rescue her. I brought her
home and took care of her and her Haitian boyfriend who had a jeep accident. I
then called their employer in Port au Prince to bring them to a better facility
somewhere and brought them to a missionary run facility for x ray and other
help. The hospitals in Haiti are dirty and not worth going to just like here
because of poverty and lack of resources. It is hard to tell how well trained
the doctors and nurses are there.
When my wife needed a surgery to remove her tumors, I had
to bring her to a government hospital in Manila some 66 kms away where the
doctor said that her fee must be paid in cash because she does not trust the
hospital to pay her and she does not accept the government insurance program.
At the time of leaving after her recovery, the anesthesiologist, the laboratory
technician and even the guard stood in line to be paid in cash for their
services that created a very bad impression in my mind about the hospitals here
although the surgeon did her job and my wife recovered well later. It was good
that our sweet daughter flew in from Australia to stay with her mother in her
room and took care of all her needs. She is a jewel.
Recently a news came from India where a hospital charged a
huge amount to the father of a small boy who had a minor accident on the road
that needed a simple first aid in the outpatient clinic but hospital doctors
performed a major and needless surgery on the poor boy that led to the death of
the child on the operation table. Then they refused to let the grieving and heartbroken
father have the body of his child on whom the greedy doctors had performed a
totally unnecessary surgery and did not accept the responsibility for his death
but insisted that the hospital had to be paid in full. They were so heartless
that it is shocking.
They also refused to accept the government health Insurance
program just like here so the poor father who had no money to pay the huge bill
reported the matter to the government authorities who then started the
investigation that led to the arrest of the doctors and the owner of the 14
story luxury hospital who had built the hospital illegally without permit and
on land forcibly taken from the owner without any compensation.
His wife was also arrested on charges of massive fraud,
graft and corruption that made the couple very rich but India is cracking down
hard on criminals by arresting them. Other countries should follow the Indian
example because the inhumanity of doctors in greedy hospitals worldwide is more
common than one is led to believe.
We have all heard about the monster doctor who made his
patient unconscious and removed illegally his kidney to sell to patients in the
United States and other countries who paid thousands of dollars for it. He was
eventually caught in India and prosecuted for his crime but how many more such
doctors are operating elsewhere?
In the United States, a pregnant woman was refused
admission in a hospital because she did not have an insurance so the poor woman
suffering great pain and distress gave birth to her baby in the parking lot. Even
then no hospital worker came out to help her. The war veterans stay in the
filthy cockroach infested hospital rooms in government hospitals where they
wait for days before a doctor or nurse comes.
Only in Mexico City, I found a world class, neat and clean
hospital where the doctors were excellent and full of concern for their
patients. When our son fell from a swing one day in a Park, a social worker
came immediately and called the ambulance that came soon to bring him to a
hospital. We did not know anything or where to go so we took a taxi to the Cruz
Roja Hospital that was suggested by the social worker where a doctor attended
to our son immediately and took him to the operation theater to fix his broken
bone.
They fixed his elbow accurately and very professionally and
put it in a cast that was removed a month later in Haiti. The best part was the
hospital did not charge anything at all for their excellent services but we
gave some donation nevertheless. The fact that my employer did not reimburse me
for the expenses was another matter not worth writing about.
It fills me with great disappointment when I see the greed of people who are supposed to look after their patients to the best of their ability in any hospital but find them unfit for their job. They cannot recite the doctor’s oath if you ask them so perhaps do not take the Hippocratic oath seriously.
Source : Google photo of doctors and nurses taking Hippocratic oath
We do get sick once in while or may have an accident somewhere so we need immediate medical assistance. This misfortune then becomes a nightmare when you find out how bad the hospitals really are and how inhuman the doctors are so it is just the shame no matter where you live because you are forced to endure their inhumanity on top of your own medical issues.
Once I was doing some gardening when I felt something bit
my hand. Soon it swelled up and became very itchy so I knew that it was a worm
that had bit into my palm and had burrowed itself under the skin. A day later
the itching became more intense and the worm could be seen under the skin getting
longer and spreading a toxin that made my palm dark so I went to a hospital to
seek help.
The emergency room staff refused to even look at my hand by
saying that it happened yesterday so it is not an emergency. I must check into
the hospital at a great cost but I refused because I knew that it was an outpatient
issue. It had happened to me in Africa before. Another doctor also refused to
treat the issue because she admitted that she did not know what the problem was
so asked me to go another hospital 35 kms away. There a doctor also refused and
referred me to a skin specialist who was not available while the worm was
getting to be more of a nuisance.
Finally I searched Google to find the right medication and
was told that a simple worm killing tablet called Mintezol that is widely
available over the counter in any pharmacy should do the trick but the
pharmacist was in cahoots with the doctors so wanted a prescription that one
has to pay for and wait for several hours for the inconsiderate doctor who
always arrives late and demands a lot of lab tests and a second visit to write
you the prescription that was not needed in the first place. By this time he
has made you pay several thousands of Pesos and wasted your time.
So at this time my wife came to my aid and gave the
pharmacist a tongue lashing by saying that Mintezol is an over the counter
medicine that costs only 5 cents and given freely to children in most countries
so the pharmacist reluctantly produced the tablet and charged a dollar apiece.
We had also threatened to report to the Department of Health for them to know
how the pharmacists are working in cahoots with the doctors to make money from
you by asking you to produce prescription for over the counter medicines.
This is a serious problem worldwide. In some European
countries and in Cuba, health care is funded by the government using tax money
so you do not have to pay anything no matter what the cost but in other
capitalistic countries they require a medical insurance from you that may cost
you 5000 US dollars per person per year whether you are sick or not. It works
in favor of Insurance companies if you are young and healthy because they like
your money but do not like to pay out if you are sick so they do not like to
insure old people who are sick and need medical help.
I know Cuba is one of the very few countries where they have
free universal healthcare where no one needs to pay for it but gets excellent
care. India is another country where poor people are given free medical
insurance by the government that covers up to 500000 Rupees in expenses but
those who are not poor must pay a lot of money to get well. The problem is that
most people in this world are not rich so what happens to them when they get
sick and cannot pay the high cost of hospitalization and medicine? This is an
open question that begs an answer.
I know that we are not rich so maybe we will not get the
medical help we may need someday when we are sick. May be staying home and
dying in our bed with our dignity intact is the answer. I cannot imagine
leaving a huge hospital bill for my wife to pay when I croak and put her
financial health at risk. I just cannot do that because I love her.
.webp)
Source : Google photo of death machine approved in Switzerland
I know that Switzerland allows euthanasia under certain
circumstances when a patient decides to end his life for whatever reason but in
most countries it is illegal to do so because they protect the healthcare
industry run by very rich and heartless business people. They hate cheaper
generic drugs because they want you to pay for their super expensive drugs so
they do not allow the hospitals to buy generics. Death machine is a morbid and
depressing topic I would rather not write about.
India is a leader in the manufacturing of generic drugs
that are far cheaper so anyone can afford and get well. It also exports such
drugs to other countries that want them mainly in Africa but also in developed
countries where people ask for generics. But cheaper drugs or not, healthcare
remains a serious issue in most countries where people struggle to pay for it
and get into huge debt.
I have written about the wonderful Islamic hakims who treat
their patients at low cost and with compassion because taking advantage of poor
people and treating them at a high cost is unlawful in their religion but they
are slowly disappearing under the onslaught of more organized money making and
greedy hospitals and doctors. I was treated by a kind hakim when I had a cut in
my ankle that got badly infected. He cleaned my wound by cutting off the dead
flesh and washing the wound with disinfectant soap that he made himself and
then put an ointment he prepared. The ointment worked like magic and it healed
soon leaving no trace. My father paid the hakim a dollar for it. (Read my blog
here called
These doctors influence the governments to ban doctors and
healers who use traditional medicines because it hurts their money making
business. They do not allow anyone to import certain medical equipment like
mobile lithotripsy vans because they have a monopoly so that they can charge
any rate they want. We have been a victim of such greedy doctors here when my
wife needed her kidney stones removed. In India the same procedure costs only
10 % of what we paid here.
The Moslems do not spend a great deal of money to bury their
dead in simple grave because even the rich are buried wrapped in plain linen in
a simple shallow grave with a hand written epitaph but the burial and cremation
are a huge and expensive industry elsewhere.
Do you ever wonder how come the funeral parlor people show
up so quickly to grab a dead body from a hospital? It is because the hospitals
make a great deal of money from them so they notify them as soon as a dead body
is available for cremation or burial.
I am really sorry that a very young and beautiful child
lost her life yesterday but I am disappointed that the hospital did not show
any care or concern and charged one hundred dollars for just a signature on a
printed form to declare that she was dead. It was like heaping salt on the raw
wound of her parents who are in shock. The Shylocks of the funeral parlors are
already salivating at the prospect of another business opportunity.
What has happened to the humanity and how people have
become so inhuman that they stopped caring for others and counted only money?
There used to be a time when people cared for each other and shared their grief
together by coming together to carry the bier, collect money to pay for some
expenses and console the grieving relatives. How people have become so
uncaring, un sharing and inhuman?
This is the sign that we as human beings are losing our
basic values in the race for money and false status in our community although I
should not use the word community here because a real friendly community does
not exist anywhere anymore except perhaps in Kalahari. May be we should learn
from the Bushmen there how to live in tune with the nature and share food and
water with everyone and enjoy doing it.
Source : Google photo of bushmen of Kalahai sharing food and water happily
Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.
La biografía de anil en español.
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