MEDICAL PRACTICE; ...a Business or a Calling?
Instead of driving to the nearest Hospital when you need medical attention, you prefer to pick up your phone and call me. You want my services, you turn my life into a living hell through incessant calls and inconveniences, calling me out at odd times, exposing me to risks, disrupting my schedule and making me loose money ofcourse. In a moment notice, I’m at your service, right in your bedroom (most times). You are willing to pay for the medications and disposables, you are willing to pay for the laboratory services, but you have a big problem paying my fees...not because you have no money, not because my fees are too exorbitant, but just because you don't feel a need to pay me. You tell me my profession is a calling, a service to humanity, you tell me my reward is in heaven (who even told you I would make heaven?), you remind me that I took an oath to save lives, even getting visibly angry at me! Jeez!...(the thunder that will fire you is still rehearsing punches).
Fast forward to recovery stage...
You’ve regained your strengths, You’ve finally succeeded in withholding my pay, You are now ready to go back to the responsibility of overseeing your own businesses, it’s time to start hustling for clients/customers, and behold you already have one right in front of you to begin with. “Doctor this parcels are for sell and I want you to buy them” ...with which money? You even go ahead to hike the price.
Dear Nigerians! Medical Practice is not a calling. It is a business, just like any other businesses. Funny enough, even some of those who manage to go to Hospitals still carry this same mentality along, but only when they visit Nigerian Hospitals (THEY NEVER TRY IT WHEN THEY TRAVEL OVERSEAS). Very often at my work place, I come across patients who just don’t think there’s a need to pay consultation fees for seeing a Doctor...even right inside the Hospital. A certain business man I once had as a patient, who travels round the world, assesses health services abroad and doesn’t complain there, was complaining of how he was made to pay a paltry N3,000 consultation fee for seeing me and came back complaining to me that he expected to pay for only the drugs and for the laboratory services...and he even added that the price of the drugs would have been cheaper if he had gone to a Pharmacy. I asked him if he liked the Hospital environment, the Air-conditioned atmosphere, the squeaky clean environment, the handsome/beautiful nurses and doctors, the running taps, the level of organisation, the ambulance drivers and cleaners who were up and doing, etc and he admitted it was awesome. Then I asked him if he thinks this Hospital would have survived the recession if we had patients who think like him...he said well....no words came out. Hurray! I won!! I wonder why a reasonable human being who has his businesses would come to a Hospital (another man’s business) and expect to get services for free.
Businesses boom when people pay and the more we pay, the better services we get, investors would be encouraged to invest in importing gadgets/knowledge/skills and technical know how, that would make our health sector to be at par with what is obtainable in other parts of the world. Aviation industry, music and entertainment industry, fashions and designs industry, church industry, Prostitution industry, ogogoro industry, etc (just name it) are all booming in this country not just because of high patronage, but because people pay for the services they get. Why then do we complain so much that the health industry in Nigeria is nothing to write home about when the answer is not far fetched?
This is the Era of HMOs (Health Maintainance Organisations/health insurance companies) and it could cost as low as N5000 to atleast secure a basic health insurance plan for your whole family but funny enough, Nigerians don’t see a need to pay for health insurance. They prefer to sow it as a seed so as never to get sick. I would blame the myriads of self acclaimed Billionaire/Private Jet Men of God who live off the ignorance of the gullible masses, telling them that Hospital visits are not their portions (I wonder whose portion it is), ripping the masses off what could have gotten them atleast a basic health insurance plan for their whole family, telling them Hospital visits is not their portion. We all know a very popular Private Jet Pastor who collects special offerings which he calls divine health insurance, whose wife has been travelling to South Africa to assess world class healthcare, after openly announcing to Nigerian Doctors that his members shall never be their customers (well, I guess he meant to say Patients/clients). In the end, we have Billionaire Pastors who have access to world class healthcare abroad and poor members who present to Emergency rooms with no money at all for the urgent services they require, who instead of channeling their frustrations to the appropriate quarters often resort to emotional blackmail of health workers with these popular lines:
- ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU WILL NOT ATTEND TO MY CHILD/MOTHER/FATHER/BROTHER/SISTER BECAUSE OF MONEY?
- REMEMBER YOU TOOK AN OATH TO SAVE LIVES!
- DOCTORS AND NURSES ARE MORE INTERESTED IN MONEY THAN IN SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES!
Do these people really expect the Doctor to go and start buying drugs, drip sets, disposables, etc with his money each time an emergencies present? Funny enough I’ve done it before and I never got my money back. Every Doctor I know has had similar experiences.
Please and please again, Medical Practice is a Profession/Business with ethics that govern it, just like any other businesses...the earlier we recognise this and treat it as such, the more it booms like other industries I mentioned earlier in the post, the better the services, and the more we attract investors! ...everyone would live happily ever after!
Na Dr. Mbaeri[truncated by WhatsApp]
Share
