By Our Reporter
I used to fully trust in doctors, not anymore. I am always skeptical. If one doctor says one thing, don’t be contented until you get the opinion of 4 others.
See, a cousin almost died, doctors insisted it was typhoid, then they moved from typhoid to Hepatitis, then it wasn’t Hepatitis, it was something else. We later found out it was something to do with the liver, but not specifically what the doctors had said in the first place. He had the surgery and became okay.
There’s a high chance your doctor may be killing you. My skepticism is supported by data from the world bank. In 2013, the World bank launched its Service Delivery Indicators (SDIs) for Uganda.
Our Diagnostic accuracy was at an average of 58.1%. In urban public health centres, it was at 70.4%, in Private hospitals it was at 60.6% and in rural public hospitals it was at 50.3%.
Now, that was just for common diseases that affect most of the Ugandan citizens.
Even Kenya which we all praise was not doing much better, diagnostic accuracy was at 72.2%. This implies once again, that you doctor has the ability to misdiagnose you at least 28% of the time.
One time, I had an eye allergy and it happened to strike when I was in Masaka. I was sent to the best eye specialist at Masaka hospital. She took me through the drills of check-up and thereafter prescribed her eye drops. To my amazement, she’d considered it as an eye infection. I told her that I have checked countless times and this is an eye allergy. She insisted. I couldn’t help but marvel at her ignorance. Long story short, I didn’t pick up her prescription, I went back to Kampala to Mengo hospital and go the right medicine.
There are countless reasons why your Ugandan doctor is going to kill you.
1. Doctors and Surgeons suffer from alcohol abuse and dependence. Compared to other professions, most doctors confirmed reporting to work under the influence of alcohol, so did surgeons who ended up forgetting surgical blades inside the bellies of patients.
2. Doctors have bad handwriting. There’s always going to be a mistake somewhere. You think the guy at the pharmacy can read the handwriting, most second-guess. Thousands die from mistakes doctors make. Last year, a woman was forced to sue her hospital for making her take ARVs for years simply because they had misdiagnosed her as HIV positive. Now imagine, when a doctor thinks a tumour is cancerous and you are subjected to the harsh cancer drugs with all the side-effects.
3. Of course, there are many fake medical degrees. Either doctors graduated by buying their way out or they bought their degree at Nasser road and opened up a clinic.
4. Doctors hate you and they hate their lives. On average, one doctor a day kills himself. Despite what you hear about lawyers, doctors actually have the highest suicide rate according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
5. If you get sick between May and August, you are pretty much screwed. This is when interns become residents and other doctors go on vacation. Thus, for most public hospitals, it is the young guys who are yet to complete their studies at Makerere University medical school that will be brought in to handle you. In medical school, this is known as the “July Effect.” Deaths from surgery and malpractice skyrocket in July. I hope you don’t get sick this month because someone is practicing on you.
6. Finally doctors are underpaid, so they are going to fill you with millions of diseases so they can get something to treat you for. It’s even worse in private clinics, the longer a doctor can have a patient, the better for his pockets. Your doctor wants you to get healed but his bank account desires that you remain ill.