The profession of medical sciences is a noble one. The sheer amount of lives that the profession of medical sciences saves is indeed something to salute. However, the profession has now been so commercialised that instead of being a noble profession, it has turned out to be a field which is only invested in making money. The end goal has completely switched. It is more about making money than saving lives. While it is true that a lot of people who are studying medicine are going to fume at this allegation, but the number of people who have been wither denied medication because they failed to pay the hefty hospital fees, or had their relatives kept on ventilators despite the patient having died two or three days before. People have lost their lives after an accident because the ambulance didn’t reach on time. It is sad if jokes are made on the ambulance not reaching patients on time (refer: Pizza is delivered in 30 minutes but ambulance is always late). While government hospitals are available at cheaper costs, they are always overcrowded and it is extremely difficult to get an appointment. Most of the time, their doctors are late and are busy running their private clinics and the list of patients just pile up, thus adding to the ever-present crowd.
While it is sad to see the deteriorating state of the medical profession, what is even more deteriorating is the way the professionals handle people. Instead of handling people carefully and politely, they’ve become rude and abominable.
This is something that happened to my friend while she was travelling in India. She needed some medicines for her problems which she was not willing to share with everyone. She is a citizen of the United Kingdom and was here as a part of the exchange program. We entered the pharmacy and asked for a pharmacist. We were asked to wait for some time. We patiently sat there, waiting. When he came, the female at the counter informed us that the pharmacist was there. My friend went up to him and asked him if she could speak to him. Around twelve men started staring at her (Again, an Indian problem of staring at white people, especially girls) and he looked at her, waiting for her to talk. My friend wanted to speak in private so I asked him if we could speak to him in private because she was not willing to disclose every detail of her medical history with everyone present there and rightly so. He stopped answering us and with a firm nod of his head, he said no. We left, but fuming at the thought of how he had refused us, we marched back inside and screamed at him. Of course, all the men started defending him and they started screaming at us. Then she threatened to get the British embassy involved if these people did not shut up. Their faces drained of colour and they started speaking softly. However, they had already done enough damage that we did not wish to engage with such people any further and with a one last admonishing word, we left.
Why do people have to behave so irresponsibly? What if that had been an emergency? Most importantly, why does a person have to reveal their personal problems instead of speaking to people in private? Why cannot their medical issues be confidential information if is not affecting the people surrounding them?
The fact that a medical professional had it in him to say no to a very basic request is the sign of how much the profession has declined. It is imperative that with medical sciences, these people be taught basic courtesies and lessons of kindness and helpfulness. It is a necessity that it be accompanied with the medical practices because clearly, they have forgotten about moral sciences that has been taught in school.