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Unnecessary medical tests

Jan 30, 2020 Editorial

It was long suspected that this was happening right under the nose, under the cover of authorizing prescriptions, and under any circumstances that could be exploited to put a dollar in the pockets of unscrupulous professionals and exploiting medical institutions. It is an extended instance of American-style medical practice (malpractice?) here in Guyana. We learn quickly to cook up grave situations and clean up with repeated cash hauls.
Not all of the people who seek attention, desperate help, at private medical institutions are brimming with cash. If they are lucky, they may have a relative or two outside who care and do something about it. Like sending a hundred or a thousand – which goes a very long way to assist in defraying the huge charges that now seem almost automatic. Nothing is cheap, absolutely nothing is free; and what is not present is invented, what does not apply is made to matter with grave faces and well-practiced lines by those well-schooled people who populate our medical ranks.
It is a largely different breed today, one that is about getting as much as possible, even if this means punishing the poor, pushing to the brink of despair, and inflicting additional and unnecessary anxieties and traumas on their hapless heads in times of severe distress.
Many of the impoverished look up to doctors, believe in them, even worship them, such was and still is the hallowed ground on which they are believed to walk. Except that quite a number of them don’t, since they are lurking in ambush behind desk, with stethoscope and uniform to match, and with an accompanying air of piousness and compassion that is the epitome of hypocrisy, and yet another example of the degraded state of this society.
At one time, a long time ago, the Hippocratic Oath meant something to those who were trained and came to heal, not just body but spirit. Well, that is history nowadays, and looks like it is here to stay, medical council and all, and press exposure and all. The environment is too ripe for picking, the pickings too rich in opportunity (not necessarily in financial resources) to let go passing by without chancing one’s arm and reaping the sweet returns.
Who is there to stand in opposition? What is there to block and correct, and that brings the caution of second thoughts and hesitancy? No one and nothing, for all that is observed. So many of our veteran doctors make hay while the sun shines, while patients suffer in silence, and are forced to bear the financial pains that they cannot manage. Regardless of whether they can afford or not, it is not right for these kinds of values and standards to be so prevalent – and almost out in the open, for all the disdain shown – and to go unaddressed and undisciplined and unchecked.
But it is not only some of the seasoned medicine men and women, who scout the territory and take fearful hold of the vulnerable and weak.
For this is also about the younger ones, new to the lucrative trade, who have heard the stories, know the game, and are quick to get into the lush action, by carving out their own rewarding space, at the expense of those who come to them to seek relief.
Instead of relief, they get their MRIs and ultrasounds and X-rays and who knows what else. These shady, dirty practices have become so much a part of the norm.
The public secret, the public misgivings and apprehensions, is not limited to the individual medical practitioner, hustler, exploiter, and opportunity manufacturer. No! It is not, since it is an open book that the roofs (hospitals), under which they ply their trade and perfect their underhanded business, are also part of the squeeze plays and enriching action. After all, they have overheads to cover, profits to make, and numbers to deliver.
It should be no surprise that more than a few medical institutions have become bazaars of the bizarre, with patients ripped off, and profits pocketed in an unending stream. It is so established and sometimes sophisticated that it may be hard to eradicate.

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