Public service

 We have often relied on the public service for services. My father is a civil servant therefore I am a beneficiary of the public service. I have a Psmas medical aid card that l use as frequently as l can because l need to use my father’s hard earned money. So if and whenever I feel unwell I just go to see the doctor. So on this one instance I went to see a doctor at a Psmas clinic. I was really sick and I ask the doctor what was wrong with me. When l got there, the doctor asked me what was wrong with me and l told him. Then l showed him what l had believed to be a reaction from an insect bite. I was startled, shocked and certainly speechless wen the doctor told me to go and google my sickness before giving me my prescription. I can still remember that he stood half a metre away from me as he “looked” at the bite. He stood there with hands on his waist and just looked at me. I still remember how angry l was as l left his office, l complained all the way home and to date. I ended up having to see another doctor J

 I decide to include this in this blog post after I heard the story of a guy who was involved in a car accident and was discharged without any medication not even a single dose of pain killers.

What is happening to the health system in this country? What happened to nurses and doctors I used to meet in General hospitals while l was still young? What happened to the basic element of compassion? What happened to the basic ethic of doing your jobs? Are these doctors buying medical certificates? Are they real doctors? Are they lazy?

I do not understand how doctors who are responsible for taking care of our health have suddenly become so negligent. Sometimes l tend to think that maybe they are not happy with their jobs, their main aim of getting into medicine was because they were worried about the monetary benefits rather than saving people’s lives. I wish all hospitals were like ER hospitals. Maybe life will be better.

Another aspect to note is that, public hospitals like Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo have broken windows. For example; we once visited a cancer patient there. The ward had broken windows and people inside that ward were helpless they could not even move their beds away from the windows since the rain was going through the windows. What then is it that nurses go to work for, if they would not care about the sick people in the ward?

Standards in these public institutions are falling. From the security guard at the door right to the receptionist, all you receive is bad attitude. From the security guard by the gate of an academic institution to the bursar, from the nurse to the doctor. It is bad. 

Then there is the passport office, officials there are downright rude, they have no respect for any person whether younger or older than them. It’s as if they were told to give everyone who comes there an attitude. They have angry faces as if people there owe them, as if they have a grudge against everyone.