Health service complaints

Doctors, nurses, anaesthetists and others are fortunate that generally speaking we seldom turn to litigation in these matters as happens in other countries especially the United States.

Of course we have become increasingly quick to rush to judicial review in less serious matters such as discrimination, real or imagined, promotions and in other matters where we believe there is some bias especially those of a racial nature. In those circumstances we know “our rights” and, like the constables who were not promoted on Monday, we do not hesitate to beg a judge to give up his or her Sunday evening relaxation so that we can have an injunction against someone in authority.

But when it comes to suspicion in the cause of death, or treatment or lack thereof of a sick person we fail to demand our rights. Part of the reality, we know, and there is basis for this, is the fact that doctors in particular and other health professionals are not going to incriminate their peers. So how do patients get justice due to negligence, incompetence or even indifference in our public health service? Who cares? The patient has died and is now beyond help or justice but what about action that would result in the elimination of such response to patients who come later for treatment and are likely to encounter the same unacceptable, even criminal, type of service?

There was a report some months ago of a woman who was rushed to hospital by her family on a Sunday morning. Apparently it did not take long for a diagnosis: kidney failure and the need for dialysis. She was a low income woman and the hospital lacked the facilities to care for her even in such a life-threatening situation. A patient with money could have gone immediately to a private facility where she would have been placed on a machine for dialysis.

But not to worry, the sick woman’s family was told, the public health service has access to private dialysis and the woman would be transferred for treatment at no cost to herself. The government would pay but of course some “paper work” had to be done before she could be transferred from the hospital to the private institution.

As the “paper work” began the woman’s condition worsened and six days after admission to the hospital she died. The “paper work” was still ongoing. What is wrong with us that we could be so callous in a life-threatening situation? Who is responsible? Will anyone ensure in the future that “paper work” in such circumstances does not follow the usual bureaucratic slowness of action?

More recently we have been given another opportunity to investigate our public health service and how it is run, because no matter how much money the government puts into this service, the efficiency still depends on humans and their attitude to work. This new case has arisen from the mysterious death of a teenager in the south. He passed away after it is reported he was administered an injection. We do not rush to judgment as we are not in possession of all the facts but we hope that the families bewilderment at the loss of an otherwise healthy young man will be addressed in a prompt manner and that the “paper work” will not take so long. Even if no one was to blame in this young man’s death, a signpost would have been erected for the future. Accountability involves not only the balancing of books and the transferring of millions from bank to bank. It is even more necessary where human life is involved.