When patients lose confidence in their doctors

The doctor however instead of giving the patient treatment for the itching, decided to again check the blood pressure from the left hand because according to her, she doubted the first one done on the right hand.When she finally tested the left hand, she disclosed that the blood pressure has risen.The patient said the doctor […]

The doctor however instead of giving the patient treatment for the itching, decided to again check the blood pressure from the left hand because according to her, she doubted the first one done on the right hand.
When she finally tested the left hand, she disclosed that the blood pressure has risen.
The patient said the doctor was confused on what to do and was murmuring something under the breadth.
“After a while she told me that though there was discrepancy on the results of the two checkups, she would still put me on hypertension drug.
“In my mind I wondered how she could put me on hypertension drug when she failed to verify my actual status,” she said.
When finally the doctor gave her the drugs for hypertension and did not give her any drug for the itching problem that brought her to the hospital, she threw away the drug for hypertension when she got home.
This is one of the instances why some doctors make patients lose confidence in our health practitioners.
The wish of every patient visiting a hospital is to get relief from what is disturbing them. The doctor is the principal actor in this case. Often times one would hear people complaining about the competence and behaviour of some health practitioners capable of causing patients their lives.
Fatima Ibrahim, 22, is a sickle cell patient and because of her condition, her eyes look yellowish. Once she had some rashes on her skin and decided to go to the Kano famous leprosy hospital to see a doctor.
While on the queue waiting her turn to see the doctor, a nurse approached her and to the hearing of everybody told her that she had a liver problem and was not supposed to come to that hospital.
“I was so shocked and embarrassed that I cried and regretted why I went to the hospital in the first place,” lamented Fatima.
What annoyed her was the fact that there was no test that was conducted on her that gave the result that she had liver problem and that even if she did, “was that the best way to pass the information to her,” she queried
Apart from the outright lack of compassion from some of our health practitioners, the approach by some of them tends to be deadlier than the ailment a patient is suffering from.
Narrating her ordeal , a mother of four in her late 40s who craved for anonymity said she visited a clinic over a toothache and after explaining her problem, the doctor could not even wait to check her blood pressure or conduct blood sugar test on her but went ahead to give her orders on what to eat and what not to eat.
 “To my dismay, she asked me to stop eating anything carbohydrate and that I should eat beans and should also avoid meat and eggs. She said I needed to reduce my weight. My concern then was how I could cut off all food and resort to eating beans overnight and there was no prior test confirming that I was diabetic or had high blood pressure. I saw the doctor as one wishing for my death,” she said.
Malama Aisha Abubakar  a lecturer in one of the tertiary institutions in Kano, said she had lost confidence in some doctors saying, “I was put on hypertension drugs and for seven years I lived on it until when I was opportune to go abroad for medication and  was asked to stop taking all my drugs which I took along with me.
“The doctor there said I was not hypertensive and that I should stop taking the drugs. Now for a long time, I have not taken any drug, neither do I suffer from hypertension.”
“What the doctor advised me to do was to reduce my intake of salt since  am passed the age of 50 years,” she revealed.
The question posed by many Nigerians is whether they could trust the doctors and other paramedics with their lives.
Responding, a medical doctor and a lecturer with the Department of Physiology, Bayero University, Kano, Doctor Salisu Ahmad Ibrahim, said that the combination of multifaceted factors are responsible for medical professional misconduct in our health facilities.
“The medical training in Nigeria has improved quite a lot over a period of time and what you are seeing as an abnormality with regards to medical professional misconduct in both private and public hospital is a problem that emerged recently.
“The factors are multifaceted. One, in the past all the medically qualified personnel, especially doctors were trained based on the autocratic principle. Autocracy is the father of medicine because it guides the conduct in the hospital. The principle is that the life of the patient is the one to be given utmost respect both in life and death,” he said.
He however lamented that though the principle is still being maintained but practically it is not given due attention, saying this is what has led to staff misconduct.
He observed that lecturers need to demonstrate this principle effectively during clinical rounds and clinic days to the students.
He said ethical lessons being taught in the past are not given due attention because, according to him, students just received two weeks’ lessons on ethics and that was it.
Continuing he said: “The Medical Education (CME) which professional bodies conduct unfortunately, doctors attend it just to get the certificate not to synthesise what is contained in the lecture series.
“The aim of the programme is to address common problems with regards to how we handle our patients but unfortunately instead of going there for that purpose, doctors just go for the certificate because without that certificate one cannot get his or her license to practice.
“Sometimes they don’t even attend the lectures and will collect the certificate through proxy.”
He added that sometimes because of social problems, the doctors tend to be money inclined and thereby rush their patients so that they could come back to their private hospitals.
As for discrepancies noticed sometimes, especially in testing for blood pressure, the doctor said since the testing itself is a skill, it depends on how well the personnel has mastered the skill.
Dr Ibrahim urged professional bodies to encourage members to take the CME with all the seriousness it deserves and that complain centres should be provided in our health facilities so that patients would have where to take their complains to.
What remains however is for Nigerians  to pray that when their blood pressure is being taken,  the personnel should be well skilled so that a wrong reading would  not be given to the doctor who will in turn prescribe the wrong drugs based on a wrong diagnosis.