TO ALL MY NON MEDICO FRIENDS:
This is the skull of a boy your age, fractured because a mob of 200 people attacked him. His fault? He tried saving someone’s life.
As doctors, we voluntarily refuse a lot of facilities that our friends from other fields have access to. We don’t have a five day week or a six figure salary in our twenties or even thirties for that matter. We are constantly bathed in other people’s bodily fluids, and are exposed to diseases like HIV hepatitis TB and countless others, all the time. We sometimes go without food or sleep for 48 hours straight, to look after these patients who at many times have been shunned by their own relatives.
What do we expect in return? That you empathize with us, that you don’t turn a blind eye to another assault on a doctor like you have always done. Everytime such an incident occurs, it’s only the medical fraternity condemning the act. However, people who have all the time in the world to question a few dogs’ death in the same hospital won’t as much as bat an eyelid when it’s a human battling with his life.
This boy is in a coma because he was the one on duty when an 85 year old man with multiple comorbidities succumbed to a heart attack , and because said patient’s relatives (read frantic mob of 200) decided that it was the doctor’s fault that he could not be resuscitated.
If you still do not speak up, SHAME ON YOU. Shame on you, because you’re enabling a system where very soon, there won’t be any doctor available in case of emergencies. Shame on you because you believe that if a patient gets better, it’s because of God’s grace and if he gets worse, it’s because of a doctor’s negligence.
Please do us a favor and do not turn up at a hospital the next time you need medical advice. Thanks.
