When The Patient is Patient Medics get Impatient

In many hospitals medical practitioners have been accused of "treating" even before the patient finishes explaining what they are feeling. Listening to patients queuing patiently outside a pharmacy in a hospital in a Kangundo hospital with Eastern Province of Kenya recently, one could tell the anxiety yet see the patients' patients’ from the conversation they were holding. “The doctor did not even look at me" one said. “Before I could show him the swelling on my neck, he had already shouted, “Next!" interjected another one. Yet they queued on!

This conversation and many others of its kind leave people wondering if the medical practitioners  truly understand at all what the patients say or in their impatience they just treat from experience.
A person living with HIV has different complications in their bodies. Opportunistic infections are many and it is not unusual for the PLHIV to experience a new infection often because their immune system is already compromised. The medics need a little more patience in dealing with such people because in the process of "detecting it from far" they may ignore a symptom that is likely to prompt serious new opportunistic infections.

A recent episode in a hospital within Eastern Province of Kenya left a man widowed and a child crying for his dear mother. Regina (not real name), died as she was being rushed to a different hospital after the clinician dismissed her severe headache as "ordinary for people living with HIV". Her relatives, who did not want their names disclosed for fear of intimidation, said that they had taken Regina to the hospital with a severe headache. The doctor they found seemed to be in a hurry and according to her husband, “he barely listened to her". Headache is common to people living with HIV “he had said prescribing pain killers to the patient who was almost unconscious with pain.

A private doctor later explained to them that Regina was suffering from severe meningitis. She advised the family to transfer her to a hospital where she would be admitted immediately. She never made it. She passed on as her husband and son watched helplessly.

For a long time, medics have been accused of "knowing it all from experience." But in the HIV era, this has been proven wrong because of the many opportunistic infections which manifest in different ways. A recent interview with a medical practitioner revealed that sometimes the practitioners are overwhelmed with a lot of patients that they lack the patience. He said that if anything, most symptoms are similar especially for people living with HIV. He said that most hospitals have only two practitioners servicing throngs of people living with HIV. “If I have to see all of them, then I need to play my cards well" he said.

While his case is purely understandable, we all must appreciate that any sickness is a matter of life and death. Guess- work in this field can be more fatal than the sickness itself. It would be prudent, to attend to few patients and identify the sickness than see the throngs and give them wrong prescription. The gospel instructions for PLHIV are that any sickness symptoms should be addressed by a clinician as soon as possible. But a day long queuing, a doctor who does not even look at you, another queue at the pharmacy is so discouraging. There are other times when the patient can try asking a question and the medic retorts," are you going to listen, or you still want to argue" But the patient is ever patient, no wonder they are called patients!