My response to the SA Medical Journal

I’m sending this letter to the SA Medical Journal in response to the recent editorial slamming Israel.

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Dear Sir,

My father has recently been diagnosed with cancer and is currently receiving treatment at one of the top medical centres in South Africa.

As you can probably imagine, this has been an almost unbearable ordeal for not only my father, but my family as well. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, the entire family is in need of care, not just the person suffering with the killer disease.

I read with interest your recent editorial entitled “A jaw for a tooth – the human rights costs of the Gaza invasion.” Suffering beside my father in one of the country’s leading medical institutions, which I thank God that we are lucky enough to have access to, has instilled in me the belief that few professions are less worthy of mouthing off about human rights in other lands, than is yours.

The medical profession in South Africa is guilty of a complete lack of compassion and worse, a level of service delivery that reminds me of our taxi industry.

The overwhelming majority of taxi drivers perform their core function. They transport passengers from A to B. They do this, in most cases, quite successfully. But the service they render is appalling. One may not question a taxi driver, and those in need of his services, have little choice of an alternative.

The same applies to the specialist doctors that roam the halls of our leading hospitals. The doctors, on the whole, do their job. But like the taxi drivers, I have found them to be overwhelmingly arrogant, distant and abusive. I have found it difficult to ask doctors any questions and when I do, the response I receive is condescending, abrupt and often downright mean. I work in the IT industry on systems that are nowhere near mission-critical. Even so, if I had to treat my customers the way the doctors treat theirs, I would have been fired long ago. At this point it’s worth reminding the doctors that their customer includes the immediate family. This doesn’t mean they need to treat the family, but they need to provide them with updates and information, the same way I need to update all project stakeholders with project status changes. We have now interacted with various different doctors and it is constantly near impossible to get any kind of discussions, return-calls or progress reports from them. The doctors would do well to remember that they are in fact paid for their services. Perhaps they think the money from the medical aids comes from some mysterious black-hole? It doesn’t. It comes from the families whom they neglect to communicate with.

Unfortunately, we are left with no recourse but to tolerate this abuse. Complaints may invoke even poorer levels of treatment. We are nothing but helpless passengers inside the taxi of an arrogant, abusive and, in this case, very wealthy driver, with no alternative modes of transport in sight.

My jeremiad against the doctors comes with a small solution. A small idea that can make the world of difference to the family that suffers at the bedside. It is simple, and shouldn’t take very long to complete. Provide the family with daily updates! You are already keeping notes of your patient’s condition, why not translate those notes into legible English so that the family can access them every day to understand the progress. This would take an extra minute per patient when doing your daily rounds. It’s no good informing only the patients of the progress when they are likely to forget everything you have just told them!

This is just a start. How about following the examples of hospitals in the United States that employ internet technologies to improve communication? The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) makes use of a social technology called CarePages - an online system to help patients manage communication with their loved ones. Perhaps you could study other online healthcare communities in the United States, particulalry the way doctors make use of them to interact with patients and their families. One example is the American Cancer Survivors Network. Social technologies are having a massive impact on the way we get what we need from each another, and they are starting to make an impact inside large enterprises. What is keeping them away from our hospitals?

I don’t have much hope that the situation will change. The doctors, like the taxi drivers, are in the position of power and the customers need to focus on footing the bill, lowering their heads and thanking the doctors for whatever sloppy attention they may be lucky enough to receive.

Either way, there is a problem, and I suggest you sir, focus on your professions own shortcomings before doing the all-to-easy job of pretending to care about human rights in other parts of the world. The medical profession is in need of some serious soul searching. As long as this situation persists, you are in no position to cast judgement on the rest of the world.

Comments

[The Blacklisted Dictator]

Dear Steve,

I am extremely sorry to read what you are going through.

Just a couple of points... the SA medical profession and the US medical profession inhabit different universes. It will take light-years before SA catches up.

Private medicine in SA stinks. I get the impression that the patient is just viewed as a cash resource.

My best wishes to you and your family.

[Skipper]

Hi Steve

Your letter leaves me sick in my stomach.
Your have very accurately displayed the 'favour' doctors do for sick patients when treating them.
Most have poor bedside manners and as the blacklisted dictator mentions, the sick are just a meal ticket.

What makes me more sick is that the organisation is sticking its nose where it does not belong, ignoring the state in which its industry us currently in. I dont want to mention public hospitals (read death traps) and their conditions.

Less time focusing on a fair retaliation by Israel and more time improving conditions for the sick and their families.

All the best