Uncaring doctor!

Rawalpindi

“When I will take round of wards, your son will also be checked,” was the uncaring and indifferent response by a lady doctor to a request by the worried father of a patient recently, who had undergone tonsillectomy, hours before at Holy Family Hospital.

This obviously further upset the father, who returned to his son helplessly, nodding his head in disbelief, as he did not expect such remark from a lady doctor, who, he was told, had resumed duty after a 24-hour break.

This happened despite the fact that this hospital is considered better than two other major government-run hospitals, namely Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital and the District Headquarters Hospital, Raja Bazar.

The identity of the father, his son and that of the lady doctor is being withheld: the purpose of this piece of writing is to shake those doctors and paramedics, who are in minority, but their attitude and lack of interest in their job adds to agony of patients as well as their attendants.

The father had approached the lady doctor at the counter of the department after fearing his son was having fever due to acute pain.

“This one sentence by the lady doctor reminded me a remark by another doctor last year when my father was hospitalised here,” the father of the boy said in reflective mood.

He quoted the doctor as telling him in plain words, “we don’t check blood pressure (BP) on someone’s wish (ham kisi ki farmaish pe BP check nahin kiya kartay”. He had felt the BP of his father shooting up and this forced him to inform a doctor on duty. He says that patients or their attendants never visit a hospital for fun.

The father contended that only with health problem(s), people visit hospitals and obviously, making request for checking BP was quite normal, having nothing to do with someone’s wishes.

This correspondent met a senior administration official at the hospital to ascertain was there a mechanism of gauging communication and behaviour of doctors and paramedics.

Requesting anonymity, he conceded that there was no concept of refresher courses for doctors and nurses, and pointed out, referring to his visit to Netherlands, where he was told about a workshop held for doctors and nurses to deal with a situation, which arises after a patient meets an unexpected death.

“Special communication skills were inculcated to the attendants of the workshop vis-a-vis their encounter with shocked and grieved near ones of a deceased,” he recalled.

He maintained that communication skills was a part of the doctors’ training at the start of their formal career but afterwards, no refresher course was ever offered to doctors or even nurses.

The official agreed that a caring behaviour by a doctor, it is believed, cures a patient to an extent before he or she is given medicines and otherwise, a patient’s misery can get compounded.

It goes without saying that when a doctor or lady doctor becomes a part of any hospital, he or she knows well about the nature of their duty and what patients expect from them, as a hospital is a place of pain and anguish and their job is to lessen the impact of these conditions.