When profit is top priority in medical care, beware!

In Eastern Cape province, South Africa, death comes to the boys through infection leading to gangrene due to circumcisions performed in the traditional manner. According to the Sun newspaper, a South African Health Department spokesman forty boys died in June this year due gangrene, dehydration and pneumonia after traditional initiation rites during which circumcision was performed to mark the boys’ passage to manhood.

According to the report, boys in Eastern Cape province, South Africa, die every year from botched circumcisions by poorly trained, inexperienced traditional surgeons who were doing it mainly for profit. The same knife was used for the circumcision of all the boys and it was not sterilised properly after each circumcision, merely using herbs to clean it.

Of course, every operation carries with it risks of one kind or another. But the risks would be minimal, if the surgeons performing the operations are well-trained if not experienced. Being well-trained and confident are the two most important criteria. After all, we know that every good surgeon had to start without experience except that which is had during practical training. However, if the surgeon is conscientious and well-trained, with the strong desire to help a person overcome his/her ailment as top priority, the surgeon would be performing at his best. Then the patient will be in excellent hands. I would rather choose such a doctor than one who operates as part of his/her daily job, going through each job without learning to improve on his skill or doing it better each time. In every profession this happens and we see people going through their work as just another day’s job. Therein lies the difference between a person who cares and one who does not, the difference between someone who is interested in the work and one who is not, the difference between an individual who looks forward to learning even more than the person who thinks there is nothing more to learn once the person leaves school, college, university or any place of training.

Alright, let’s return to the main topic of medical treatment. We started with a place in South Africa where good hospital facilities and surgeons could perhaps be unavailable to the surgeons concerned. Despite that, those surgeons performed for the sake of profit. Nevertheless, the danger lies not only in poor areas without good hospital facilities. Even where private hospitals exist, the danger of placing profit as a priority in private hospitals is indeed a possibility we have to consider. As the world becomes more and more materialistic and more and more private hospitals are built resulting in greater competition to get sufficient funds to maintain themselves, profit plays an important factor in the survival of the hospitals. When profit is top priority, there must be money from patients. Then, the question is, were all the operations performed really necessary? Was the job carried out so that it helps to finance the hospital? The danger of this happening is always there.

Of course, creating jobs for themselves, whoever they may be, be they mechanics, salesman, teachers or just anybody, is an everyday affair and there is no harm in it if the job is necessary, well-done and satisfactory. When it comes to the expense, there ought to be no complains as life is enhanced. A good, if not excellent surgeon must be appreciated as he performs a very important role in our lives. He must have spent a lot of time, effort and money, not forgetting his mental ability and alertness, to become one. Not just anybody can be a really good surgeon.

However, it is a waste of time, effort and money when the job is unnecessary. And in the medical profession, it is not just those things that are lost, lives are endangered or placed at risk too just as those of the unfortunate boys in South Africa who underwent circumcision performed by surgeons who ought not to have performed the task as it is obvious even to the layman that sterilised equipment and room are essential for the safety of the patients. A surgeon who does not even realise the importance of that and goes on to endanger the lives of his/her patients has no right to call himself/herself a good surgeon.