The Patient's Plight

DOCTORS ON STRIKE

How is the health sector in your country? How bad is it for the doctors, nurses, and also the patients? Will a strike action make any difference? We all know how bad things can get when medical practitioners go on strike, but will it be worth it if it makes the government finally pay more attention to the sector?

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IMAGE IS MINE

I sighed when I saw the prompt above because last year, there was a back-to-back strike in my country. Every sector was going on strike in protest against the high cost of living and the low minimum wage.

In the end, we saw very little difference. A difference that was already in motion, so it's not like it was a decision reached to mitigate the strike. Probably the strike hastened it, but then what good is a minimum wage increment if the government removes the subsidy on essential goods like petrol, which controls the economic activities in my country?

Indeed, a government that did little or nothing to address a nationwide strike will not be bothered if medical practitioners go on strike, and here's why:

1. The leaders of my country do not patronize the medical services in my country. They have a large appetite for foreign goods, and as such, they get medical allowances to go abroad for health care.

2. The masses are highly resilient, giving them the ability to cope under any circumstance. So even if medical practitioners go on a year-long strike, the people will always fashion out an alternative by going the traditional way or perish under the weight of their coping mechanisms.

3. The government will always revert to their good old strategy of divide and conquer. An effective strategy that has crippled various sectors in the country. So if a strike should happen, all the government needs to do is to identify those spearheading the strike and give them a juicy offer that they cannot refuse, and once the leader is bought, the agenda crumbles.

This brings us to the major problem: everyone is culpable. Both the government and the medical practitioners are all guilty in the collapse of the health sector in my country.

It is worth noting that there are several occasions where the government provides free health materials in public healthcare centers, and these materials are either sold to private healthcare establishments or sold to the masses when they come to these public healthcare centers.

What about the services of these medical personnel? Well, at the time it used to be free, the masses were actively being charged.

We see the medical personnel do these things, and then they justify it with, "Oh! The government does not pay us enough," or "The government does not provide the resources for maintenance."

They often claim that the money being charged for the services that ought to be free goes to maintenance, but when you take up the matter with the appropriate authorities, you find out that their claims have little or no truth attached to them.

How about the medical personnel who neglect their jobs at the public health centers to run their own private healthcare establishments?

You see, everyone is culpable, and this is a good time to remind us that the change we seek starts from within.

While the government might not be establishing enough in the health sector of my country, we still see the personnel actively sabotaging the system and diverting the little allocated resources to themselves.

It's a sad commentary, really, because in the end it is the patient who bears the brunt. While the government officials are opportune to foreign healthcare, the medical personnel are also opportuned to have their services in demand by healthcare establishments abroad.

But you see the patient? They are stuck; they don't have much opportunity like the other two in the mix, as not many can afford foreign health care.

In conclusion, I'd ask where do we go from such rot as a people?