RIGHTEOUS LIE: the bread and butter of doctors and private hospitals/Clinics.

RIGHTEOUS LIE: the bread and butter of doctors and private hospitals/Clinics.

“Dr. K thinks that he is still working at the Ministry of Health,” my colleagues used to say and they would laugh. I was called many times to the office of the manager/owner of Al Ahli Medical Polyclinic to instill in me that working in a government hospital (I was there for more than 20 years: 1980-2000) is different from working in a private clinic. It took me 3 years (this is my 8^th year) battling not only my employer but my conscience until I was slowly absorbed by the system but only to a certain extent that is reasonably acceptable to my moral sense of righteousness.

I spent more than half of my entire life in this town so how for instance will I write unnecessary expensive diagnostic examinations for someone I have known for quite a while. My other dilemma is overseas foreign workers from South Asia who will spend half of their monthly wage for an unnecessary abdominal ultrasound. Although I detest what the other foreign doctors are doing; I accepted it as necessary evil until I realized that it was no evil: it is a righteous lie. Doctors need to exaggerate diagnosis to convince patients to submit for more expensive examinations. Although doctors do not want you to be well; they don’t like you to be likewise seriously ill. They want to cure you to make you happy and grateful. They hope that something abnormal will come out of your laboratory examinations so they will know for sure what is wrong with you and if need be; ask for more expensive tests. This not the truth; it is the reality of private enterprise.

When mandatory medical insurance was instituted in Saudi Arabia not only for foreign workers but also for all Saudi citizens employed in private and semi-private companies/corporations; I saw it as godsend for my moralizing ego (LOL). Even then; I was slow to adapt to the new realities. Only when I realized that owners of Insurance companies fly around in private jets and partying in private yachts that I changed attitude. If you come to me with complain of recurrent abdominal pain; I will send you for an abdominal ultrasound and other tests and if our clinic has a CT scan which we do not have (fortunately lol); I will send you for one. In this way; everybody is happy…patients included. (I just got a call from our pharmacist. He is sending me two patients meaning two poor sick Indians with Insurance cards that belong to another. Sigh…! My moral dilemma.

I don’t judge people who run private clinic/hospital. While they have a responsibility to the public; they have a more pressing responsibility to the institution they run, the stockholders demanding for profitable dividends, employees and yes; monthly payrolls. To raise money; they need to cheat patients and insurance companies in so many different ways (male patients pay for pregnancy test in USA [lol]).

I don’t believe it is fair to condemn Pacific International Hospital (http://truthaboutpacificinternationalhospitalpng.wordpress.com/) based on the experience of one or few persons that happened sometimes ago. If you are too highly moralizing person; you must never never work in a private hospital/clinic because you are going to be severely disappointed. You must seek employment in a government run hospital where you try every persuasion you can muster to drive away patients wanting admission which is the opposite of private enterprise where you employ the art of persuasion including white lies to keep patients admitted. In a government hospital; everybody is well…go home. In a private hospital; everybody is dying…stay.

Back in the days of “MEDICARE” insurance in the Philippines; the company was bankrupted by small clinics and hospitals that made the insurance company their bread and butter collecting hospital bills for people who never got sick.

https://www.amazon.com/Nosca-Khalid/e/B01NA7APYQ

NLK