In July 2014, I was in Dubai for an international workshop on healthcare financing and innovation. The workshop, which was organised by Pharmanews Limited in collaboration with Aster DM Healthcare, was attended by medical doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. The visit to the Aster DM facilities and the city tour made the event very memorable. Two key messages of the workshop were teamwork among healthcare personnel and commitment to the welfare of the patient. Healthcare personnel generally were urged to respect, serve, help, encourage, and exercise patience with the patient.
We were challenged to learn from the service industry that does everything to provide good service to the customers or consumers. However, one major obstacle to such admirable and patient-centered kind of care was identified as ego, the feeling of superiority, and self-importance, which results in poor services to the patient.
Today’s healthcare, as the workshop facilitator observed, demands capacity development and continuous training of personnel. Effective hospitals can no longer be managed by doctors alone. As the hospital grows, there is need for hospital administration, pharmacists, business managers, accountants, technologists, and so on.
On our way back from Dubai, I had some time at the airport and as usual, visited some bookshops. This time, one of the books I bought was titled, “Live Life Like Never Before” by Shukla Datta. I started reading the book at the departure hall. In the process, I came across a touching story that I would like to share here with you. One day, a doctor entered the hospital in a hurry after being called for an urgent surgery involving a boy.
He immediately went to the changing room, got ready, and went to the surgical block. He found the boy’s father restlessly walking in the hall, waiting for the doctor. On seeing the doctor, the father yelled, why did you come so late? Don’t you know that my son’s life is in danger? Don’t you have any sense of responsibility? The doctor smiled and said, “I am sorry. I wasn’t in the hospital.
I came as fast as I could after receiving the call. And now, I want you to calm down so that I can do my work.” “Calm down?” The man asked angrily. “What if your son was facing life and death right now? If your son dies right now, what would you do?” The doctor replied with a gentle smile on his face. “I will quote from the Bible, from dust we came and to dust we return. Doctors can’t prolong lives.
Go and meditate for your son’s life. We will do our best by God’s grace.” “Giving advice when we aren’t concerned is so easy,” mumbled the father. The surgery took a long time, after which the doctor came out happy. “Thank goodness, your son is saved,” he said. And without waiting for the father’s reply, he left the place as hurriedly as he came. Minutes later, the father went to the nurse attending to the boy and asked, “Why is the doctor so arrogant? He didn’t even wait for me to ask about my son’s condition.” The nurse could not check her tears. Her voice was choked.
She struggled for some time and then said, “His son died yesterday in a traffic accident. He was at the funeral when we called for him for your son’s surgery. And now that they have saved your son’s life, he left running to finish his son’s burial.”
I don’t know whether this is a true story or not. But this can never happen in Nigeria. Nigeria is not a place where a patient can have the courage to yell at the doctor for coming late to work. A patient may not even be bold enough to ask for the name of the medicine prescribed for him.
No patient can challenge his doctor, who is the almighty in the hospital. No doctor can be so humble as to apologise to his patient for coming late. And definitely no doctor in Nigeria can be so committed to his patients as to leave the burial of his own son to rush to the hospital on call to save another man’s son.
