People are dying because of lack of proper healthcare

Jan 13, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – If you do not have money in this country, then you often have to settle for second class health care in Guyana. Do not bother with those who are telling you about improvements at public healthcare institutions. What improvements?

For too long, Guyanese were led to believe that things were improving in the public healthcare system. If this were the case, then the private healthcare system should have long contracted. However, this is not the case. The very opposite is happening and not because people want to massage their egos by showing off to their neighbours that they can afford private healthcare. Even the poor are being forced to go to private doctors and hospitals because they are totally fed with the miserable service and unsatisfactory care which many public healthcare institutions provide.

If things were different with the public healthcare systems persons would not be flocking to private doctors and hospitals to the extent that they are doing now. It is not cheap to seek private healthcare.  From the moment you land at the door of a private hospital, the billing starts. You have to pay a Consultation Fee which is about $3,000. Some specialists charge as much as $7,000 just to see you. Medicine today is not like long ago. In the old days, you would tell your doctor your symptoms and he would make a diagnosis and send you for medication.

These days, you would tell the doctors your symptoms and they would form a preliminary assessment of your condition. Then they would start recommending all manner of tests. They can hear you coughing and see your nose running and notice that you have a temperature, but they would still send you for a battery of tests including one to see if your body is fighting an infection. They would send you for an x-ray to find out your lungs are infected badly.

And don’t make the mistake of telling the doctor that you are feeling weak. He or she will recommend blood works. All these tests add up to tens of thousands of dollars which the average citizen cannot afford.

You can get most of these tests for free at the public healthcare institutions. But who wants to sit down for hours to see a doctor and then more hours after you have seen a doctor to have the tests done, then to have to come back the next day for results and have to wait hours more to see the doctor, only for him to tell you that you are seriously sick and need to be hospitalized.

Regardless of what the authorities say, the public does not have an overall favourable impression of the public health system. And that is why the private doctors and private hospitals and clinics are now one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy.

The government has to stop bamboozling the public with talk about how much money it is spending on the healthcare system. It should start ensuring that the system is working for the public.

Poor people often face humiliation when they are forced to go to private hospitals. When they are told about the cost of the treatment, many of them are forced to take discharge. Persons with heart conditions have had to get up off their beds and take discharge when they are told that the interventions that they need will cost millions.

And yet come Monday, we will hear again about the great strides which are being made in the public healthcare system. But pouring more money into the public healthcare system is not going to change anything. The system is broken and needs to be remedied.

And it is not going to be remedied by those who work in the public sector but who moonlight at private institutions. It is not going to be put right by having persons seen at public institutions by some doctors who then tell the patients that they need to come to the doctors’ private clinics to complete treatment. It is not going to be put right by having private interests involved in building and establishing specialty hospitals. They are money making ventures. There is only one way to fix things: the government must set out to develop a highly efficient public healthcare system and to miniaturize the private healthcare system.

Unless that happens, the public healthcare system will always be playing second fiddle to the private healthcare providers. And citizens will continue to die because they neglect their health because of the hassles of dealing with public healthcare.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Guyanese, hospitalized, lack of proper healthcare, Peeping Tom, public healthcare institutions

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