Doctor's insensitivity
G.M. Chowdhury, Kafrul, Dhaka
I am deeply moved by an incident in a city hospital. I barely could check my tears having read about the brutality of the doctors and staff of that hospital. But it is nothing new, rather it is a perennial problem. Actually we the people have fallen victim to the doctors' insatiable greed. They seem to be immune from law. Even our journalists are afraid to highlight their ghastly practices. Or else, how doctors could take to the street or go for strike during the emergency ? No newspaper has dared to run a story on how doctors have been earning money by keeping us hostage. Doctors are capable of rendering any middle class or lower middle class family destitute.What is saddening is that, not a single doctor's name has featured in the list of the top corrupt persons of the present anti-corruption drive. But any investigative journalism could easily unearth bone chilling stories of how the patients are counting money in the name for pathological or radiological tests, which could have been easily saved had the doctors been little humane. Let me give you one clue, if a diagnostic test costs you say Tk 1,000, the doctor invariably gets between Tk 400 to 600, which is either paid on a daily or a monthly basis. All the diagnostic centres, clinics and hospitals maintain a database or roster to see which doctor has sent how many references and pay them accordingly. Even peripheral doctors referring from Barisal or Mymensingh are not deprived. So having paid the doctors almost half the charge of a test, the institute is put in a bizarre situation of making a balance between test or no test. If they carry out a proper test than they would barely survive. So there remains every possibility of a fake test, given the present malpractice of the doctors. The end sufferers are the patients. But if strict measures could have been enforced against taking commissions from the diagnostic centres, clinics or hospitals, patients would be able to conduct a proper test at a much cheaper rate. One last point, why the patients should pay the doctors twice, once for appointment and once for test? Who will answer this question and if not now when ?
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