May 12, 2012

Three simple rules in Complaining

Someone anonymously commented in my past blogpost as 'viv':
my friend had a cough n sore throat. she went to the govt hosp in a small town in perak. the HA who attended to her straightaway wanted to refer her for a lung xray. of course my friend resisted, having been recently xrayed for some other ailment. when she told him she wanted to consult a doc, the HA told her to 'keluar'. after waiting for more than 30mins, the doc on duty arrived, n promptly ticked off my friend, saying she shouldn't hv rejected the xray. and that did my friend know that TB was getting rampant? after some 5mins of ranting, my friend told the doc that how come the HA had not examined her throat? how could he hv deduced that she had TB? is this the sort of treatment we could expect in govt hospitals?

When I got this comment, I was hoping my blog wouldn't slowly transform into a 'Dear Thelma' page.
To be frank, I am not really keen in giving advices or feedback.
Mainly because if it turns out otherwise (there's always a risk of it does), it just don't feel right for me.

It is also not fair for me to comment to your question because I was not there at that point of time.

It is asking police officers in Tawau, Sabah
why the police officers in Dataran Merdeka have time to take videos of people destroying the surrounding barb-wire, did not react at the first instance to catch the perpetrators and then started wanking off their tear gas propellers.

Ok, sorry, I digressed.

Main issues that I believed to be involved are:

1. HA ordered X-ray without checking the throats.
X-ray is an investigation. Checking throats is a physical examination.
Examination should always precede investigation.
But it is not HA's responsible to check your throats and he's definitely not trained to do so. Neither is he authorized to order X-ray or force it upon your friend.
Nevertheless, if your friend had already been X-rayed, why didn't your friend bring along the X-ray?

2. Doctor agreed with the HA and made you wait 30mins.
Examination prior to investigation rule still stand. But there are many hidden reasons only best known to the doctor why he agreed to such an ordeal. Perhaps there are really an outbreak of TB near your place or there was a recent mortality with an mildly symptomatic patient with tuberculosis. I guess you should clarify with the doctor involved or get another second opinion from doctor of your place.
Frankly-speaking, there are probably millions of reasons for this surprising anomaly in management.
Personally, I would put the 'faulty half-bake doctor' as the diagnosis of exclusion, after excluding all possibilities.

I believe given the resources given to us, the maldistribution of resource and the suboptimal training of the human resources (the HOs) of Health Ministry, we are all under great pressure, but still give the best to the public.

What we're gravely missing out is communication.
Probably the 5-meals a day in the one-week Induction course snuffed out the attention span during its routine Communication Skills lectures series.

Just to be perfectly clear.
If you and your friend is not the kind who expect five stars treatment with 5-ringgits payment, I encourage you to put up a comment or complaint (to them).
Similar to other field, customer feedback are really precious.
It will help improve the system and put those black sheeps in the radar.
Plus, get you a proper explanation and a closure to your grudges.
We need those feedback because human life is frail and one day, we can never run away from illnesses, even as doctors and private health providers is never a definite guarantee of a gold standard care.

Here are 3 simple rules in giving feedback or complain.

No 1. Get to the correct channel and upgrade gradually. 
Ladder
Write it in the Comment Box in the Hospital (if provided)
If no reply, write directly to Hospital Director.
If no reply, write to Health Ministry.(< click on the link for the Complaint page)

Commenting on my blog post will not help. You probably had mistaken me for that Hospital Director or the Health Minister. I thank you for that honor, nevertheless.

No 2. Be specific.
Amusons Nous Avec l’atome N°1
Write your name and contact number.
The name of persons involved.
The incident. The words being said. The date and details.
Commenting without specificity is not only not beneficial, it is dangerous.
People will stray to the idea that all HAs and Doctors in hospital of small town in Perak is substandard.
Resorting to self-treatment rather than going to public hospital for real treatment because of the wrong notion of substandard care will do greater harm to the them in the long run. 

No 3. Don't be a troublemaker. (troubles for yourself)
Mutant Cell Pearl
Don't go to news media (newspaper).
Don't go spiral on social networks.
Don't go to political party.
Don't threaten to sue this and that.
Blowing matter out of proportion will do you no good.
Trust me.
You'll feel very glorious at first.
But when the matter get out of hand.
You'll be unnecessarily thrown into the limelight, just so that
the media can spiced up their pages,
your friends have something to gossips about online,
the political party can 'show' that they are doing something 'great' and
lawyers can earn good money whether you win or lose.
As for the hospital, the whole medical team will be demoralized unnecessarily.
Precious time best spend to treat and communicate with patients are being taken away to attend to unnecessary Inquiry, one after another. 

And so, dear 'viv', in summary
- Get to the correct channel & upgrade gradually, Be specific, Don't be a troublemaker.

Wishing you all the best. And wishing your friend speedy non-tuberculous recovery.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Honestly, if viv was in the interiors of Sarawak, doesn't matter whether she has sorethroat or not, or whether thr is pharyngitis/tonsillitis. Chronic cough = TRO PTB = need x-ray. tx symptomatically if xray clear/sputum clear.

viv said...

tq for showing how the 'system' works in a govt hosp. my friend shall certainly be grateful for the info on how to lodge her complaint. but to get to the 'proper channel' and having to wait (how long?) before the authorities reply, the initial urge to help improve the system would hv surely run its course. and honestly, does raising something valid tantamounts to being troublemaker? if it's for the general good of the people, i don't see why such matters should be kept under wraps. are the hosp staff so sensitive that they can't even take some criticism? aren't they supposed to heal and not play god?

pilocarpine said...

Dear viv,thank you for showing interest in the system n my blog.
U will never knew how fast our system is until u try it. Trust me. All complaints received instant attention.

Raising something valid surely not tantamounts to being troublemaker.however,it isnt easy to really classify something is really valid until proper situation being fully understood. Some of the times when complaints came barging thru political busybodies or eager journalists' news piece,it isn't valid at all.

Hospital staffs,like u n me,r humans,too. We are all open to the fragile weakness of being egoistic at some point or another.agree?

koh said...

doc, maybe the system runs faster over ur hosp. but i've tried it out at our state of the art sg buloh hosp. i waited for more than 5 hrs at the emerg dept for treatment (was referred there by gp who thought i had fractured my foot). in the end, hubby gave up, told me to seek treatment in private hosp. had x-ray, plus consult, all done in less than an hr. ya, i do understand the workload is much greater in govt hosp where the cost (for patient) is so much less, but u also see many ppl in private hosp as well. in the end, it's the system, it's the administrators, it's the staff that matter. and yeah, just keep politicians out of the system.

pilocarpine said...

Koh... Many people in gov hospital is definitely much much more than 'many people' in private hospital.d statistics can vouch for my statement.

System,administrators and staffs tend to run faster with higher salary.i think u can't argue w dat.

Nevertheless, in public hospy,it's bout prioritization.fracture will never trumps other life threatening ds.

As much as we want fast service,we shd remember we must be grateful and relieve dat our ds is minor and warrants to be waitin leisurely.

pilocarpine said...

Koh... Many people in gov hospital is definitely much much more than 'many people' in private hospital.d statistics can vouch for my statement.

System,administrators and staffs tend to run faster with higher salary.i think u can't argue w dat.

Nevertheless, in public hospy,it's bout prioritization.fracture will never trumps other life threatening ds.

As much as we want fast service,we shd remember we must be grateful and relieve dat our ds is minor and warrants to be waitin leisurely.