Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Apartheid in my own country

We often get enraged when we are discriminated against because we are black or not citizens of a particular country. But take a minute and look around your communities and see how much we practice segregation in our daily activities.

To begin with, go to our churches, some seats are reserved for some particular people because they are presiding elders, deacons or church financiers. So even when they are not in church, their seats are reserved for them. You the common member who came to church early, will sit outside the church because you don't hold such position(s). Other times too, certain positions are reserved for the 'Rich and Famous' in the church whether they can do it well or not. To the neglect of of the 'common church member' who can do the work better. Is this not apartheid in the church.

Again, go to our hospitals especially, the pediatrics centre or what we call in Ghanaian parlance 'Weighing'. A man goes there with a baby or toddler and the nurses make him jump the queue with the plenty women in it, and his child is taking care off  in some few minutes for him to go. So i ask 'what if every woman comes with the husband who will jump the queue?' Is this not Apartheid? Are the health workers saying that women are second to men in this country? This is what Buchi  Emecheta described in her novel Second Class Citizens.

Go to our banking sector, certain cages or rooms are reserved for a certain kind of profession. So if you are not in that class of profession and that cage is free you dare not use that cage. Is it not the same savings, current or investment account that we all hold? So why the segregation? Is it that our monies are so merger so they do not care much about them. No wonder savings and loans and micro finance companies are flourishing. Because they treat their customers as kings and queens.  They do not allow them to queue so that they will be discriminated against. They go to them at their various work places or destinations to take their savings or receive payment for loans.

We practice all these and more in our various communities yet we preach equality of all persons. The most disadvantaged in this are those with some form of disability or impairment: buildings including hospitals not to talk about churches, are not  disability friendly. When they manage to get into such public places every other thing they want to do is dependent on someone. So the visually impaired cannot not do and transact businesses such as banking without being aided because there are no brailles. What if the person writing for him cheats him or makes a mistake? Who is there to ensure that nothing like that happens or he should just trust.
Apartheid in my own country!!!

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Consulting Outside the Consulting Room

I got to the hospital (OPD) records section to process my child's document; so we could see a doctor for treatment . So I spoke to the person in charge and she asked who is sick after presenting her the necessary information she needed. I responded to her question. Then she asked again "what is wrong with your child", I again responded to her question she followed with another question "how long has your child had that condition". At this time I asked myself "do doctors in this hospital work at the records section too? After asking all these questions she then processed the documents for me and directed me to a place where my child's vitals will be taken. There too I experienced the same thing except that the nurse taking the vitals called some of here colleagues who also came to do their own probing and then formed a quorum to discuss my child's condition and which doctor they think is best to see, before we were sent to the consulting room. This is what I call Consulting Outside the Consulting Room. If you are unfortunate and you are admitted, you'll have to explain to every nurse who comes on duty. While at the OPD, I realized am not the only one who experienced that but most of the patients especially, women, who came there.

 Is it a strategy to get some patients to go back in order to  cut down on the numbers?  You see apart from the fact that this attitude is unethical, it is also time wasting  and does a lot of harm to patients psychologically.

Consulting Outside the Consulting Room sometimes causes panic attacks in patients. Making patients feel their conditions are hopeless or they have to go through some expensive or painful treatment. This can get in the way of treatment; as patients become anxious and apprehensive during treatment.

It also lowers patients' confidence in some doctors, especially, if they couldn't meet the one (s) the nurses proposed. This causes disappointments in some patients when they get to the consulting room.

Again, Consulting Outside the Consulting Room, makes some patients to lie to the doctors about their conditions. All because of some comments a nurse made after probing them or a nurse's attitude towards them. So they tell themselves 'if a nurse is saying or doing this then, what will the doctor say or do'.  

This attitude also prevents people especially women (mothers) from coming to the hospital because they do not want to be explaining their condition or that of their children to nurses amidst embarrassment. As a result, many mothers with babies take their babies for immunization only when they have to be given vaccination, which shouldn't be the case. 

Nurses we know you mean well but this attitude is doing more harm than good.