When Life Comes First but Payment Comes First

In a gathering some days ago, a man shared a story about the birth of his first child. He shared a lot about the chaos and how his wife struggled so much to birth the child, in the midst of prayers and singing praises to God by families, friends, even nurses and other workers in the hospital.

All that part of the story was emotional but it got to the part where the man was asked to sign a document consenting to doing a CS for his wife so they could save both of them and save time. He said he reluctantly signed it but it wasn't because he was scared of losing any of them, he was actually worried of the bills to be paid first.

Surprisingly, they let him sign the document and before he could even rally round for money to pay deposit so they could commence the process, he was called that the surgery went successfully and his wife and baby boy are well and healthy. We all screamed in the house when we heard it.

The scream wasn't for the safe delivery through CS, it was for the "no deposit" made that the hospital didn't bother about before doing their work to save lives. They offered the man time to pay his bills long after he has his wife and his son with him. We all thought it was quite impossible.

It sounded like an impossible story because we knew well enough the country we're in especially. We had never heard of such a pardon in a hospital before even in more critical life and death situations. I remember how I escaped a "no diagnosed" surgery because of no deposit paid.

In that situation, I was thankful but I can not help but imagine situations where the patients or their families don't have any way to get money fast for a life to be cared for and treated. It's a sad reality today, only few doctors are in hospitals to save lives. Most hospitals think of the hospital's expenses to bill patients, not how to save them.

It's funny to think that doctors took an oath to save lives at any cost but a lot of patients seem to not be able to pay for the cost charged at them. I really don't know who exactly is to be blamed in all of this because most of the time, these doctors are working under a hospital's policy so they can't just go easy on the patients.

And then, there are really costs to carrying out some treatments that should be paid for before it commences. This is where the government of the place comes in, I believe patients will have less worries if there are more free medical equipments and drugs donated to hospitals too.

I don't see a better way to handle turning patients down when they can't pay than everyone being considerate of one another and the Government playing their roles for her citizens. I believe there is no perfect way to go about this because any way decided will still birth human selfishness.