Monday, February 19, 2007

Fucked up "brain-transplant" . . .
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Egypt . . . The country of contrasts . . .


When it comes to health-care and Egypt, it is a country of contrasts.
One the one hand we have one of the best surgeons in the world and people comes from all over the world to make certain operations. (Like eye operation, liver transplant etc.)
I had a friend from England who was working and living in Egypt for about 6 years.
Last year he suddenly, without warning collapsed. He went to England to make a health check after the command from his insurance company. In UK the doctors could not find out what was wrong and let him go for 1 year without further checks. As he got worse he finally got to a doctor here in Egypt who discovered that he had cancer in his liver. He went back to England and asked for a new check on the claim that they had found cancer in his liver. Yes, sure enough . . . then the doctors in England also discovered the cancer and prepared him for chemotherapy.
He came back to Egypt and told the doctor here what the doctors in UK had said.
Here they told him that chemotherapy was not the correct treatment. The best way was simply to remove the tumor by an operation.
It showed up that Egypt has one of the best surgeons in the world, when it comes to this kind of cancer and operations.
He went through with the operation and it was perfect. Completely free from cancer, he now should only recover from the operation.
It is then it fails . . . The aftercare is so lousy, so he almost died of lazy and lousy aftercare in the hospital. Lousy cleanliness, wrong medication and after-care gave him not less than 5 strokes, all unnecessary. He was called back to England for after-care by his insurance company and is now perfectly recovering.
I had another friend who came to Egypt to make some eye operation. The operation went perfect, but again . . . the aftercare gave her such inflammations in her eyes so she almost got blind, so she had to go back to Switzerland for after-care and recovering.
I have in an earlier post told about my experiences here in Egypt.
What surprise me is; How can the government and the surgeons accept that the aftercare are so lousy so the patient can die of it. What is then the effort of being one of the best surgeons in the world worth??
After reporting to the administration of the hospitals, the answer given is: “They do know how to do it correct. It is in their education, they only don’t bother to do it.”
This is beyond my intelligence, that a hospital accept that the nurses are doing such lousy job and spoil the hard and honest work of the surgeon.
Not only does it destroy the reputation of the medical care in Egypt . . . It also destroy the reputation of the country.

The government really do an effort to give the country the best possible chances to do things correct in a respectful and worldwide accepted way, but when the individual doctors or nurses don’t care and with laziness and lousiness deplore the governments effort, they also destroy the reputation of both themselves and the government itself.

In the same way, do I know that the government has put in a lot of money and effort when it comes to scanning of blood used for blood transfusion . . . But can we trust the doctors and nurses who suppose to be in charge of it???
No . . . .I’m sorry to say.


10 comments:

concerned citizen said...

that is an interesting contradiction. what conclusions have you come to?

Is it just laziness or something else? maybe there isn't anough supervision? that seems easy anough to fix. Not anough trained nurses?

Kirsten N. Namskau said...

LT: It is pure lazyness and carelessness.
It shows in everything else too as I will write about in coming posts.

Jeannie said...

It is really crazy what happens in the medical field sometimes.
Doctors bend over backward to do some risky, costly, not likely to work operation on someone who won't ever be able to function properly anyway, yet I have a friend who needs knee replacement due to arthritis but they won't let her have it because she is "too young" and will have to have it again in 15 to 20 years. Where is the sense of not letting her? Make her live in pain when she could otherwise contribute better (she is in her 40's).

Anonymous said...

Kirsten, seems that it is still advisable to rely on relatives, friends or private nurses when hospitalised in Egypt :( What a sad thing.
Can the patients or the bereaved file charges in case of medical malpractice? Might be helpful to improve the nursing standard in the long run.

none said...

It's the same here. I was in one of the best hospitals with the best surgeons, but the nurses didn't read my chart, gave me the wrong food, medicine and ignored me when I told them they were wrong.

Without friends and family a healthy person undergoing a routine procedure could easily be killed in a hospital.

Kirsten N. Namskau said...

Anonymus: No, I don't think it helps to file charges here, against hospital, doctors or nurses...

Hammer: The best is to try to keep as healthy as possible. It seems that something is a like all over the world. I know it also is pretty much like that in Scandinavia too, diagnose by luck, hit or fail.

Anonymous said...

In the U.S. medical care is a business and like any business they are out to make a profit.

Anonymous said...

Kirsten, thank you for the information. It does not really surprise me … But a guess can always be wrong, that is why I asked.

Anonymous said...

Hammer, that is a shame. I hope you did not sustain damage!

I guess Kirsten is right: It happens all over the world. As far as I know, the responsibles can be brought to court in many Western countries. Unfortunately, most patients are afraid to do so or think it would not help anyway. But according to my experience, hospitals and medical staff are very afraid of charges. It can help a lot to ask the nurse or the doctor for a written confirmation that they insist on their malpractice. –If the patient knows and has the energy to ask.

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