IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT MONEY

The medical system of the world is different in different countries and continents of the world. This is why we can't judge things universally especially when talking about a controversial topic about the medical system. In most African countries, let's be first aware that our government has failed us and thus we can not really blame how the private institutions run their affairs. If we really wish to look at things with a conscience and without any form of bias, we can agree that in the medical system, there are certain level of medical care that are expensive not because someone decided to just make them so, but because they require intense effort and precision, plus the personnels who handle such treatments are either rear or few. Knowing this, it will never be cheap to cover the logistics for such treatments.

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Let's use the MRI machine for example, it's a very fragile mechanism that requires 24 hour power supply which is a very big issue in Nigeria. This means any hospital that has it will be spending a lot on electricity, and if they must continue treating patients with it, they need something to continue running such expenses. Therefore any patient who needs an MRI would be charged a lot for it. If they can't afford it, there is nothing the hospital can do. Some people like to blame hospitals when the cost of treatment is high, but think about it this way. These private hospitals require money and manpower to work, the only place they can get the money to pay for manpower is by charging their patients. Some of these hospitals hire the very best medical personnels to handle their patients and these personnels don't come cheap especially when you think about how much they have spent to get to the level they are. I do not want to believe that anyone who works in the medical field up to the position of an attendee knowing what it took to get there would simply decide to be considerate to those who can't afford to pay their bills.

Doctors are humans too, humans who need to feed and pay bills. The doctors are meant to save lives, but the doctors must live to save lives. Would you trust your life or the life of your loved one to a hungry doctor?. The fact is that we can not blame the private hospitals for these things when the government inflates goods, and has not found a way to make the cost of living better. There should be a level of medical care every citizen of a country is entitled to, and there should be subsidies with the ones that are very expensive. But when there are no jobs and the standard of living is low, we can't control what happens next. Obviously it will be hard for the less privileged to access a certain level of medical care. In developed countries, the government pays for these things through taxes, but at least they give jobs so their citizens can pay taxes, this is something our government can not do.

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S
PROMPT FOR WEEK 219 EPISODE 2