Posts Tagged → healthcare
Gaydar.
Yes ….. another sex-ed post ……. not as raunchy as most would like but there you go ……
We’ve all watched Will and Grace, The L-word and Queer as Folk and have borne witness to that magical 6th sense known as the Gaydar and although many of you might think it was just an urban myth or something as simple as seeing if the guy gets a manicure or the girl chooses to let moustache run rampant …… think again …..
The gaydar is probably best defined as the ability to pic out or discern the gender of a person with a relatively high accuracy. It’s been studied by psychiatrists (finally made themselves useful), gender studies experts and even neurologists and the results are quite interesting. For one thing thanks to the work of Ambady, Hallahan and Conner (Currently tenuring at Tufts I believe) we can now say hand on heart that if you showed a one second clip or even a photo of a person to a group of gay and straight men and women, gay men are by far the most likely to guess the gender correctly while straight men wouldn’t know a gay man if he bought him a beer and gave him a quick rub down ……
Which means that the so-called gaydar is actually one of those things that you need to learn, practice and hone. Unlike sexual orientation (which is one of those things you are born with); you actually need to work at it and learn it and the reason why gay men are better at it than say, gay women or the straight population is because gay men need it to “survive”. Thanks to societal pressures and the fact that it is/was largely considered taboo gay men have had to get really good at it to prevent a beat down, loss of their jobs etc …..
Having said that various panels, questionnaires and studies have been conducted to analyze exactly how the thing works and to this day they cant say that it depends on hair, behaviour, skin color, appearance or anything else. But they can say the it’s a type of intuition or impulse which means that it relies on a preconceived idea and is therefor hotwired over time.
So it’s not something that requires active thinking but is rather something that we do subconsciously by taking in the person as a whole. Kind of like the type of thing you’d do when picking out a friend on your first day of school. You talk to them but you don’t know why you do it exactly.
The problem with this type of hotwiring is that it’s labile and isn’t 100% efficient … it’s also easily lost if not used enough (which explains why straight men are crap at it). It largely depends on the following:
- experience: whether you’ve actually seen or are exposed to people of varying sexual orientation, and if you, yourself are comfortable with yours.
- mood state
- Stereotypes you may have with regards to clothing, a lisp or say pink hair.
- Predispositions: do you want the ride that fine ass? or hoo hoo?
So when all is said and done it’s kind of one of these things that does exist, but you have to work on ….. alot. You also have to clear your head for it to work right and you pretty much have to go out there and let that freak flag fly!
But there is an important question that none of the studies mentioned above tries to address and that point is probably the most important and interesting of all; as homosexuality becomes more socially acceptable will the need to hone this skill dwindle? Will that sixth sense shrink like a residual organ and be left a useless remnant of it’s formal self?
Could a Liberal Society kill the gaydar?
Only time will tell ……
Even the Birds and the Bees do it.
Sorry if this article seems a little too much. It was very hard to write simply because I’m straight and have very rarely had the privilege of writing about the gay community. Not that they ever need defending …..
“It’s a real disease, they should all be burned that way there’ll be no gays. Think about it, you get rid of the problem all at once”
When I heard that I decided I hated all homophobes, they’re a bunch of people who are either ignorant or just plain old idiots. I heard that from a friend not two weeks after he became a doctor, I was still a student. I also found out that a fair chunk of doctors don’t really try to understand people and would rather stick to learning things like the rate, rhythm and character of a pulse or how to describe a funny looking rash.
The statement not only showed a deep lack of empathy for his fellow brethren, its also shows a complete lack of understanding of our fundamental behaviour as species. For one thing it isn’t a disease nor is it a symptom of one. Homosexuality has been part of our innate behaviour as mammals since the dawn of time; there are infact over 1500 species that have displayed and documented homosexual behavior. Here’s a list stolen from wikipedia Show ▼
And despite the best efforts of many “doctors” and “psychologists” it’s not exactly something that needs fixing or infact should be fixed. They’ve tried everything from aversion therapy (which failed on both penguins and humans), to medication, to electro shock therapy and even religious killings and floggings with practically no success (perhaps they keep failing because it’s a part of human nature?)
I’ve always regarded sexual orientation as being akin to left or right handedness. There are people who are left handed, people who are right handed and people who are ambidextrous and enjoy both worlds and then there are people who are somehwhere in the middle and can do somethings with the left and somethings with the right. But I’ve increasingly begun to see that it’s far more than that. Most of us are now in our mid to late twenties (a couple are probably hitting their 70′s and are reading this blog hoping that it’ll be a dummies guide to euthenasia and some of you are probably 8 or 9 year olds who are here for the toilet humor) and have at some point longed for or have experienced an connection with a person of the opposite sex. We probably treasure memmories of that time and tend to look back on it very often. Imagine if you could only experience that with someone of your own sex and try and understand the feelings of disgust and disdain you’d face from everyone around you including pillars of your community; that’s what gay people have to go through in our society today ….. and that’s why I for one can say I admire them for their strength and fortitude when they do “come out” and try to function in a society that loaths them and wants to send them all to hell for no real reason.
And when I say no real reason I do mean that. I have yet to see a single point against homosexuality that I couldn’t argue against. The most common and generic is that they tend to have a higher incedences of STDs within their community ….. fucking garbage , the strictly lesbian population has the lowest incdence of HIV when compared with heterosexual and other homosexual groups according to the NAM (National AIDS Manual) and although the homosexual male population was at some point the group with the highest prevalence of HIV the number is now going down drastically over the past 10 years, where as the numbers for normal folk seem to have been on the sharp rise since 2003. Another arguement that I keep hearing is that it goes against God and nature …. please click the show button a couple of lines up, read the whole thing and then explain how this goes against nature when it has populated natural history since the dawn of time.
Another good one is that it’s” a disease that keeps spreading “…… I always answer that one by asking for numbers ….. which most people can’t give me. I then rattle of my own set of numbers comparing a kinsey series from the 1940′s and 50′s with a modern survey of similar scope conducted by a whole gaggle of people all agree that the number of people who have had some homosexual tendencies varies between 25-33% andthe number who are openly and strictly homosexual is around about 5%. (well more like 4-10%) which means that the numbers haven’t really changed drastically over the past 60 years and are probably not likely to change either. The Kinsey numbers are also significant because they mean that at least a third of your friends and family have at one point thought of batting for the other team as it were (just have a look around your dewaniya the next time you’re there)
Besides think of how much easier dating would be i Kuwait if you were gay, you could come and go as you pleased. Go on dinner dates, kiss in public and live together and no one would bat an eye lid. I’ve often thought about it but alas the hoo hoo has me wrapped up in its mystical spell ……. having to work under cloak and dagger and keep sneaking in public is definitely a worthy price to pay for the love of the hoo hoo …….
So the next time you see someone who is gay (or more likely someone you may think is gay and have used as a butt for every joke at the office) try and put yourself in thier shoes, the poor bastard isn’t blind nor deaf; he’s just willing to put up with your snickering ……
And we Fail……
One of my dummer posts. Doesn’t really work. Tried to write it a couple fo ways. You needn’t read on unless interested.
Its a diseae that can turn Patrick Sawze to this:
What can kill 7.6 million people a year? Cancer is almost an almost god-like disease. It’s mysterious (we’ve attributed everything from deodorant (false) to chemicals, to obesity, to food), can’t be stopped and comes in mysterious ways, it’s also varied and is built into your very DNA and is therefor one of the oldest diseases in existance (First reference was made by Hippocrates or Galen (I forget) a couple of hundred years ago). Since Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971 over 200 billion dollars ahve been invested into a finding a cure in the US alone and we still don’t have one clean cut one, size fits all cure for it.
Sure we’ve made lots of progress but it just isn’t enough; we now know that cancer is caused by changes in our DNA which makes our cells divide uncontrollably, we also know that therefor anything that changes our DNA (chemicals, radiation, even viruses) can cause cancer. We’ve also manged to make chemo and radiotherapy more accessible, easy to give and safer over all. However that just doesn’t seem to justify the 200 million invested.
One of the best defintions of cancer I’ve come accross is “a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood)”. I like it because it’s clear. It basically means that cancer is a cellular disease (lumps are a bi-product; it can happen in any type of cell) which makes cells grow and divide without regards to their neighbours making them take up more and more space so that the surrounding healthy cells can’t get enough nutirtion to survive and therefor waste away and these cells continue to devide regardless of how much resources they take up (hence the whieght loss), it also means that these cells can migrate. Their migration is largely based on what type of cell they are but as a given they can go almost anywhere, and that’s where we have a problem.
I cannot see us finding a cure based on that definition because it just isn’t true, it’s over generalized just like the term cancer. Cancer tends to present with different symptoms depending ion the site. For example breast cancer presents as a lump (usually painless and brand spanking new) brain tumors present with headaches or loss of vision and pancreatic cancer presents with abdominal pain, leukemia with malaise and fever, and lung cancer as painless coughing long term with whieght loss.
The spread of cancers also various according to type, It’s really very simple (brace yourselves …. this is a tough one); for a cell that was normal and has become cancerous to spread it has to find similar cells to bind with. Cells which are similar come from one of three different origins (think of them as grand daddies of your fully grown cells), either neuro-endocrine(your nerves, brain and gonads come from these ones), Mesodermal ( these form your lungs, liver, pancrease, intestines and wind pipe) and ectorderamal (Your skin, nails and boobies as well as some layers within your nerves). So for example pancreatic cancer is more likely to spread to the liver because those cells are similar. Testicular cancer is more likely to spread to the brain because those cells are similar and skin cancer can spread to the sensory areas of the brain because those cells are similar.
Based on these facts (1. Each type of cancer has a different set of symptoms, 2. each cancer spreads differently based on it’s embryonic/genetic origins) and the fact that each type of cancer is caused by a different set of genetic mutations I think that we can safely assume that each type of cancer is infact completely seperate disease. If a disease has it’s own set of symptoms, it’s own genetic mutations and it’s own way of spreading then why not give it it’s own name? Why the fuck do we still use the term cancer.*
Rebranding is never a solution but it does help put things into persepctive. For one thing when you tell a person they have cancer they all think they are going to die but if you tell them they have a disease that they know is curable (or isn’t) it gives them a much clearer picture. It will also help medical students understand the diseases better because they aren’t under such a broad blanket and will mean that researchers and physicians can work on a specific type without feeling like their specialty is too minute to make a difference.
Best of all it’ll mean the end of a dogma that has haunted the profession forever …… the idea that all caners kill. Don’t get me wrong, many do but quite a few are now very much treatable thanks to early detection and better understanding.
It may be something simple, stupid and fool hardy but it won’t cost 20 million and will stop doctors from telling people that every lump “could be cancer” as is the case with many dick wads I work with who can’t diagnose cancer if it grew out of their left nut and got stuck on their assholes.
* I lie, there are medical terms for each type of cancer for example dysgerminoma, adenocarcinoma and sarcoma but their still referred to as skin cancer, testicular cancer and breast cancer by most of the profession because they are taught under the same blanket. Changing the names will fix this.
Curing Cancer….. Yes it is worth it ……
Apologies …… I’m actually going to try and argue out a serious point here ….. and yes, I am well aware that the fine people who run Q8Health could probably do a better job at this sort of thing* (serious medical stuff …. involving educated arguments, etc.)….. I just thought I’d give it a go anyway …..
We’ve all been touched by cancer. We all know what it feels like and are well aware that there is never a happy ending, only some comfort in the fact that a person is eventually cured. We also know that the ministry spends alot of money ….. far more than most other government institutions and rarely has to face cutbacks despite under-performance year in and year-out; not to mention the fact that we’ve become one of German Healthcares’ top ten sources of income and have spent so much at The London Clinic we practically own the damn thing.
So when someone finds a vaccine for cervical cancer (fifth most deadly cancer in women worldwide) . (the cervix is the front part of the uterus…….. it’s kind of like the bumper ….) you’d expect our people to be all over it (if only so that Dar Al Shifa, Royal Hayat and the other ones can fill their coffers).
And just so we’re clear we’re not talking about some vaccine based on sharks cartilage, Chinese herbs or chanting like some Sherpa, we’re talking about a 3 – shot vaccine (sorry girls …. it’s either 3 needles or cancer ….. you just have to tough it out I’m afraid). And the best part is that it actually does work and has undergone numerous clinical trials (with practically no side effects).
A Specimen of a uterus and cervix …. the big ball is the cancer … well a tumor … it may not be cancer … but it does look like it.
The drug itself (known as Gardasil) doesn’t actually kill cancer cells, instead it provides women with immunity against the leading cause of the cancer (the human papilloma virus). The virus is in most of the male and female population by their late teens (in most countries) and is also the leading cause of genital warts (the things that stick out like skin tags …. commonly present as anal warts in our 16-20 female population …. I wonder why …. ). At the moment it’s only approved for 12-16 year old girls who are not sexually active and have therefor yet to be exposed to the virus but is probably safe for the general population.
At a time when our healthcare budget is about 962 million and we spend well over 100 million KD trying to give people a summer vacation in Germany while some distant relative gets his tooth taken out, surely we can afford to spend a couple of million instigating what could be a landmark campaign against cancer. For one thing the drug itself doesn’t cost all that much (about 300-500 dollars per person …. which isn’t alot for a cancer cure …. if it were me I’d charge you bastards at least 2 grand a piece ….. and yes, that is in KD) and our population isn’t all the big. Then there’s the fact that we have a department in every hospital specifically assigned to giving out vaccines (It’s the public call it Preventive Medicine …… we call it medical nirvana …. no sick leave, no fights, no sick patients and no dead people).
So using the numbers from the CIA world factbook (apparently we have a population of 2,596,799 (including expats and those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have full citizenship) and a below 14 female population of 338,634) which when multiplied by the cost of the vaccine (500 dollars) and a 30% markup the local drug dealers (= people who have distribution rights in the country and tend to peg the prices according to arbitrary numbers their kids dialed on their mobile phones) would amount to a grand total of about $220,112,100 and sure 220 million dollars (64,399,298.03 KD) is alot but it’s only a 6.7 percent increase in our total healthcare budget for this year (2009-2010) and would make sense economically since the cost to treat cervical cancer in Kuwait is astronomical (everybody wants to go to Germany or the States and those who don’t end up having to wait for aaaages to get any treatment)
It would also do our side (I can’t believe I just referred to the ministry of health as “our side” … ugh ….. ) a world of good in terms of publicity (especially after that video with the babies head pulled off …. and yes, from what I’ve heard it was a still birth ….. just steer clear of a romanian midwafe at Jahrah … just incase … ) if they were one of the first middle eastern countries to “cure” cervical cancer (it’d be like the good old days …… before leopard hijabes, annoying stickers and idiots who over do it with the hair straightener ….. the fuckwits).
However as with any form of progress and any ideas which actually involve thinking and enthusiasm it’ll probably never see the light of day ….. we still don’t have it available in the damn country …… oh well …….
At least people in the U.K. might get lucky ……..
* No, I’m not being sarcastic, I actually think that you’re one of the very few places on the internet where public healthcare reform in Kuwait is actually being discussed in a correct and mature manner.
Chinese Democracy
Healthcare in Kuwait is abysmal, it’s kind of like working in a giant cookie factory and seeing all the cookies come out burnt to a crisp or being eaten by one of your co-workers (the one that weighs about as much as the factory does) thus leaving you unfulfilled by all the work you put in and leaving your factory in ruin …….
When I first got here I thought it was because we had substandard equipment ….. it turns out that we have a surplus of most equipment in most departments (except for disposables such as gloves, sutures etc ….. something tells me that the sutures tend to end up in my colleagues private clinics while the gloves magically turn into balloons for their kids birthdays).
I then got to thinking that maybe it’s because of the doctors themselves, if you think about it most of them are lazy bastards who end up skiving off work by the time they get their consultancy (it’s kind of like being the five star general in healthcare) …. which got me thinking that it’s an administrative/ human relations problem and that employing a “carrot and stick method” (Yes, I am trying out some new vocabulary here and no, I do not feel comfortable with it yet ….. it’ll grow on me though …. ) may be the key to solving all our problems; I assumed that if you gave the big wigs enough incentives then productivity would increase …… turns out all the incentives were always there and in traditional Kuwaiti fashion they all got all their bonuses regardless of whether they showed up for work or not and lets face it ….. I’ve yet to see a Kuwaiti doctor get fired over here ……. so there’s no use in implementing any sort of incentive scheme or an ombudsman (kind of like a department that watches over all the other ones …. think of it as quality control with fangs of steel) of any kind.
And after spending some time with my patients I thought that it was all their fault. Most patients don’t understand the difference between a doctor, a physiotherapist, a nurse or a maid and the vast majority tend to take you for granted and walk in with the preconception that there are only two types of doctors in this world ….. the blonde* ones who know their shit and the dark haired flunkies who will use you as a lab rat.
Furthermore most people tend to use their local casualty service as their family practitioner, surgeon, cardiologist, bone doctor and chemist all in one department and refuse to wait more than ten seconds to be seen and then rip his/her head off for not being a morning person or even worse for not knowing the diagnosis right off the bat. But I suppose that’s not it either since most people do infact attempt to get to the polyclinic (mistawsif) only to find that the doctor they were hoping to see is infact the medical equivalent of a dildo in an all male orgy (why go for the plastic stuff that’ll chafe the hell out of yer asshole when the real thing is just fifteen minutes away)
Which is why after spending the past couple of years working as one of the low level grunts in said factory, I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to introduce good/adequate healthcare in this country is infact just like trying to introduce Democracy in The Peoples Republic of China. It’s a goal that is not attainable for far too many reasons to list.
The way we’re going about healthcare over here would be the equivalent of demanding elections in China, buying them electronic polling machines, allowing the public to cast their votes and then throwing a hissy fit when the communist party is voted back into government because that’s the only thing the Chinese have been introduced to and the only party they feel threatened by.
The Ministry of Health have gone through the trouble of buying multi million dollar equipment, building multiple polyclinics (mustawsafat) as well as multiple general and specialized hospitals without explaining to ANYBODY how they work, what their responsibilities are and how a person should go about getting a checkup, colonoscopy or even a routine x-ray done.
They’ve sent people abroad for upto 10 years to train in surgery, medicine and trauma and psychiatry only to bring them back and tell them to work as low level grunts without giving them any orientation, objectives or motivation and have made it so that even the home grown doctors from the local university feel neglected after their first year.
Worst of all is the attitude patients assume as a result of the current system and standard of care, most patients will automatically think that the standard of care they’re receiving depends on their nationality, willingness to pay fees for tests, background history (alcoholic, drug addicted or just plain happy go lucky), family background and lastly how scared doctors and nurses are of them; which is why many patients tend to complain about the smallest things and many nurses/doctors end up having the crap beaten out of them at some point in their careers.
I really can’t see the current healthcare system improving over the next couple of years, no matter how many times our ministers get changed and how many hospitals they plan to build; the fact of the matter is that the damn thing was forged from parts that can never be mended.
Cover of the album that took over a decade to be released …. only by the time it was done nobody really cared …..
And if/when they do get it right like the Guns and Roses album aptly named “Chinese Democracy” it’ll be too little too late ……..
* Yes, you read correctly in the Kuwaiti Healthcare system blondes are considered smart ……… goddamn it we’re fucked …..
Doc Brinkley: Talk about a Load of Bull
Was reading about the boo ha ha a certain group of doctors have been making about their colleagues at Adan in the paper. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones still they should thank their lucky stars they ain’t working with this fuck-up.
Part of Brinkleys Mega-Bucks Advertising Campaign
It was 1915 and young John R Brinkley, having spent the last 8 years trying to get through the first four years of medical school had finally decided that medical school was not for him, so he joined the Eclectic Medical University in Kansas and for a rather reasonable fee of 500 hundred dollars the boys at the University granted him a nice little medical degree with practically no effort involved.
The now Dr Brinkley (much nicer ring to it don’t you think) went on to open his own practice in Arkanses where he practiced medicine for a number of years, servicing the local farming/meat packer community (who weren’t exactly the sharpest tools on the shelf). Regrettably, one of his patients who at the time was suffering from impotance, loss of libido and a general lack of energy suggested to the young, bright, broke and ever so ethically inclined doctor that perhaps the solution lies in implanting bull testicles in him (seeing as bulls were known for their erm ….. virile nature ….. damn rednecks always had skewed logic). The man even offered him 2500 dollars (the equivalent of 10 grand by today’s standards).
So having been offered the good chunk of change to essentially kill a person the good doctor performed his first surgery (ever) and inserted the bulls testicles into the man and low and behold 9 months later the man had his first child ( yes, it was all in his head and no the bulls testicles didn’t work). Now, Brinkely having been faced with such an excellent opportunity decided to take the money and hire an advertising company, get him self a spot on the radio (” The Doc Box” on KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best) and call himself a fertility specialist with “the only proven cure for impotence” (remember Viagra wasn’t around at the time)
Since then Brinkley went on to make over 12 million dollars over 15 years by performing his procedures on men, women and even children. The vast majority of the procedures when done in the back of his practice while he was drunk and many of his patients developed bleeding, infection and a good number (even by Kuwaiti healthcare standards) died and even those who survived only managed to keep they balls for a couple of months before their bodies reacted to them and destroyed them by inflammation.
A wedding photo from when he married his second wife (yes, he was still married
to his first one at the time…… like most sick fucks that bastard was polygamous*)
A regular person/doctor/false profit would have decided to call it quits after he’d killed a couple of people and many of us would probably admit that we were wrong, however the good doctor insisted that the procedure required a person of “intellegence” for the it to be a success and blamed his patients for his failures (sounds familiar to anyone?) and in the end it took the fine efforts of Morris Fishbein (executive secretary of the American Medical Association) to get Brinkleys licence revoked and even then the bastard tried to run for governor so that he can appoint an new board of directors for the American Medical Association and get his licence back.
Oh well, if it’s any consolation Brinkley died alone, penniless (thanks to the IRS) and with one leg chopped off ……. Yes, Karma is infact a bitch in stilletoes*.
*I can’t spell and wordpress’s spell checker is giving me hell ….. live with it …..
Concierge Medicine and the Pleasures of being Served ……….
Rather long and relatively meaningless post, apologies. The gist of it is that if we had an entrepreneur who would introduce high quality health-care we would all be better off …..
Medicine has changed. Gone are the days when a doctor was there for a patient in their hour of need (and only in their hour of need). Modern medicine has become a service industry just like any other, thanks to peoples requirements, expectations and the nature of the services offered by our industry such as drugs that make you happy (we all know what these are people), young (including Viagra and hormone replacement therapy, and Botox) and various diets/procedures that will get you to that perfect body.
People tend to require prompt and polite service, accurate record keeping and a relatively good outcome with pro-active staff members (at least that’s what I’d expect if I went to my family doctor).
Unfortunately our health-care system (like many other public health-care systems) tends to leave you less than satisfied to say the least. This is largely because of over crowding, underfunding and the fact that we have no “real” family doctors.
They’ve been largely replaced med-school flunkies who spend the whole day drinking tea and reading papers at their local leisure club (a.k.a the polyclinic or mu9taw9if) and are occasionally called upon to get up of their lazy asses and write the odd sick note or read the odd EKG while they contemplate what they’ll be having for lunch this afternoon.
The lack of existance (I exaggerate ….. maybe motivation is a better word) of family practice physicians makes most people run to casualty regardless of the urgency of their condition. Everything from headaches, to nose bleeds, to food poisoning, to pneumonia and diarrhea all get seen by a casualty officer. A poor bastard who spent most of his/her life training to deal with situations involving life and death rather than a stubbed toe or a bad rash a kid got after having a good time in Dubai …..
Which is where “Concierge Medicine” comes into play, imagine having a doctor who has a wide breadth of knowledge, good network of colleagues and only 50 families to care for at any given time. She/he’d be available to you 24/7 and will know you, your family and their history. S/he’d be able to schedule things to suit you and would be able to get you in touch with the best specialists for you. This was the vision Dr. Howard Maron had when he started his concierge medicine service MD2 international.
A service provider which offers packages ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 dollars per year for dedicated custom, bespoke health care online, by email, chat and phone. Other (more …. erm ….. economic) alternatives include MDVIP which restricts doctor patient ratio to 1:600 and offers a similar service.
One could argue that this creates a two tier healthcare system, similar to that which we see in the US and other countries and one could also argue that the government should be held accountable and should provide us with this service pro-bono. But no matter how much you argue your point, you will (sadly) still have the same healthcare system you had in 1986…… We don’t have enough doctors (alot are moving on to private practices and hospitals both inside and outside Kuwait) nurses (the pay is too low to get someone with a bachelors in nursing; the ones who we have right now are largely people who nursing diplomas and would be considered candy stripers in any other country) or facilities (same number of hospitals and well over three times the population we had in the 80′s … do the math).
So maybe introducing a private concierge healthcare package might be the silver bullet we need. Most people don’t mind paying for good quality healthcare in this country; and lets face it most people need it. Having a “VIP” service will also lessen the load on our casualties and government funded hospitals and will reduce the doctor:patient ratio which will mean a better working environment coupled with a happier patient and shorter waiting times …...I might even look forward to going to work in the morning ……
p.s. I’m running out of ways to bash the damn MOH ….. I think I might have to start posting about what I had for lunch ……
Import/Export
We’re bored of the summer, Avenues (or afeneuyz as many of us call it) has lost it’s luster and everywhere else is unbearable thanks our fine fifty degree weather and while many of us end up going on vacation and enjoying it, a fair share demand medical reports for conditions which they’ve had for the past 20 years.
These include your lumps and bumps as well as dependence on dialysis (for which they have refused transplants in the past), an old stroke and possibly even diabetes (yes, diabetes ….. the only disease entity which every person in Kuwait has become an expert in thanks its endemic nature).You’d be forgiven for thinking that these reports were written so that a patient may gain insight into his/her condition in an effort to turn an new leaf and start a new, healthier lifestyle; or so that a written record can be kept and referred back to during an emergency.But sadly most of these reports are requested and demanded specifically for a 4 month vacation in Germany, London and even Thailand.
The reports, while requiring a great deal of time to be compiled, written and reviewed by both the attending doctor and his/her supervisor, end up being the subject of scrutiny as 60 year olds scream at you for not specifically stating that you can’t treat their condition in Kuwait and that it is an urgent one which requires treatment abroad (yes, I am talking about diabetes, hypertension and that lump of fat that happens to be in the wrong place for the past 20 years) and despite the best efforts of medical staff and clerks in administration; the idea that the vindictive, mean, abusive (and lets not forget incompetent and negligent) doctor has it on for them ends up being brought up and shoved down your throat in the middle of the corridor (it’s very hard to kick an old man in the knees while he’s on a wheelchair with other people watching)
The problem arises because these charming, vivacious (and dare I say it …. polite) senior citizens have yet to face the crystal maze* that is the ministry of health, you see in ordered to seek medical care abroad under the MoH (ministry of health) you have to set up a coordinated series of “was6as”, go through a number of offices (usually occupied by people who dwell in the mundane and never bother showing up for more than an hour a day), collect more signatures than a girl scout going in a sponsored hike and even then ,you’d still have to wait for an okay from a council or group that is set up.
Another issue I have with people traveling abroad for conditions requiring long term management which many of our doctors are more than capable of is the fact that these cases put a strain on a ministry that is just built wrong (putting it mildly) and this delays many of the cases which require (= deserve to a limited extent) treatment abroad such as certain rare or borderline heart conditions in which management may be dicey and certain other things like weird tumors, rare muscular disorders and funny transplants(liver, kidney+ pancreas, intestine). In most cases these conditions are either relatively rare or may require management techniques that are only available in a handful of centers and although most of these cases are not very urgent and do not require emergency surgery, they do get worse with time and waiting two or three months for your papers to go through is simply not an option.
Ironically, many of the countries we export our woes to have developed a trend known as “Health Care Tourism” which sounds very much like fusion cooking (i.e. a fad that ends up with mixed results to say the least). Places like the States and the U.K. ship patients to places like Thailand, Cuba,and India regularly (infact it’s estimated that 55,000 U.S. Patients have been admitted into one hospital in 2006 in Thailand ) but they do it because of the spiraling costs of getting good healthcare in their own native countries rather than the quality of the treatment they receive over there.
And before anybody asks for a ban on treatment abroad you should bear in mind that it would be far too expensive for most Kuwaitis (even the well off ones) to afford long term therapy for things like myloblastic leukemia, a coronary bypass or a small bowel transplant without cutting some corners. It would be simply unethical for a country with this much spent on healthcare NOT to provide people with the treatment they need.
It would also be juvenile to think that bringing in the worlds best blah blah surgeon, or the worlds best poo poo expert or even House M.D. would make thing any better. To work on the complex and the rare requires repeated exposure to it and adequate compensation for the sacrifices you make in the process. Something the MoH lacks to say the least. You see it would be the equivalent of getting a carpenter to teach your cook to build a desk and then getting your cook to build one for you. After your desk is built the cook will never need his newly acquired carpentry skills and therefore they’ll soon fade never to be put to use again.
So where does the solution lie?
‘Fuck should I know; I’m not smart/educated/experienced enough to know the perfect mothers day gift let alone find a solution to this creature from the abyss …..
*I was going to use gauntlet of doom but decided against it
Recent Comments