Kia ora koutou, another doctor, another patient who misses out eg dies.
A woman going into prison had a diagnosed of irritable bowel syndrome. This condition can be seriously painful. While she was inside her condition worsened and she complained of severe pain. The prison authorities say there were two doctors consulted but it wasn’t until some considerable time (and I would unhesitatingly say, some considerable agony for the woman) that the prisoner was taken to hospital where it was discovered she had bowel cancer. She subsequently died.
It made me think of all the cases I’ve read, or listened to, stories of bad treatment of people in retirement homes, public hospitals, where people die because of inept, hurried or just plain wrong diagnoses and I’m wondering why the doctors, nurses, prison guards, staff concerned, are never named.
Leaving aside what appears like a determined effort to ignore this particular woman’s concerns, leaving aside the lack of human kindness of prison authorities and staff (it would have been obvious this woman was in severe distress), there were two doctors who, you would think, had more training, more experience, who deal with patients on a daily basis out in the world and who, presumably, have some experience. Neither of them (apparently) ordered tests, neither of them organised a colonoscopy, neither of them ordered Xrays.
Why don’t we know their names? If you or I were responsible for contributing to someone’s death our names would be blazoned across all media. Whether it was deliberate neglect or casual unkindness we would not be allowed to hide because we were a writer, a painter or a dancer and certainly not if we were a cleaner or home help. If we had money to pay a lawyer we might be able to organise name suppression, at least for a while, but that’s about as far as we could go.
So, if the large majority of us are publicly named when we do something wrong (even when its accidental) why aren’t doctors?
