Health Care, Where?

We live in a world, where heath, healthcare, health problems are one giant Pandora’s Box or so I hear.

Now I’m not an expert of any sort on medicine, the practice, the perils, the facilities or lack thereof, my “expertise” is limited to vague dreams of a child to be a doctor when I grew up. But one trip to the hospital to meet my Dadi, after her 3^rd (I think) heart attack, she had a few of them in her time, cured me of my ailment to try and be a doctor. I saw a man in a neighbouring room, covered in plaster from head to toe, I am sure, hindsight makes me embellish, but there he was groaning in pain, and I burst into tears.  Doctor dream “hashtag” ended.

Back to present day, and my reason for writing this down, my conversations, in recent times, with people regarding their experiences with health problems of any kind, sound more like horror stories from the dark ages.

From prestigious hospitals, misdiagnosing a viral fever and admitting the patient into ICU, to an endoscopy leading to a broken jaw and a punctured lung and yes subsequent death of the patient (RIP Dada).

And as a Human Being, I believe we have the right to fair heath care practices, when one is ill, no matter what sort of illness, the drain, emotional, physical and monetary is a sad truth. The severity is directly proportional to the drain, and why, why but why would health care providers try to add to your woes? Aren’t they there to make them go away?

Not according to the buzz in every society, outside every hospital, every dinner table where, someone’s health problem is discussed, indignant at the horrors faced when getting treated.

We trust a doctor to prescribe the best possible medicine to make it go away as quickly as possible (or the time it takes, sometimes work schedules will have to suffer due to an illness, go figure).

But we don’t expect, to be prescribed with 1728 tests, 265 different medicines and 3 sachets of albumin, for the survival of a patient. We don’t expect to be harmed by the hands of those who are meant to heal. I know it’s called a medical practice; but it’s getting a bit ridiculous, no?

Of course, I have some faith, because not all stories out there are horror stories, some people do manage to escape not just unscathed, but healed and well recovered from the experience of recovering their health.

The burning question though, is who does one trust, where does one go when one is unwell, for general ailments we have our GP, a trusted guy, with a small practice, who is probably walking distance from home (what I’m the only one???), but what about when the going gets tough, and that’s not unheard of, in times where stress is the only thing you live with from the time you get admission into a good school; where 15 minutes of sleep is more important than a good breakfast at home, where fast cars, zip through streets with no consequence of who might be hurt. I could write a thousand and one reasons of why you could need someone more than a GP.

What do you do then?

Where and how do you go about finding which place to go to, where are the reviews of hospitals, I don’t trust a place just because its big and fancy, or made buy an industrialist family or acquired by one. Or conveniently use the one closest to home and fingers crossed, it’ll be a wise decision. 

I don’t want to make any sort of allegations, or slanderous statements, but my experience so far hasn’t endeared me to the idea of dealing with a harrowing hospital, where running from floor to floor to figure out who needs to proceed with the next medieval torture, masquerading as modern day medicine, designed to rob you of your sanity, money and faith in the human race.

The question remains, how you go about finding the best healthcare for what ails you?

For now technology seems like the answer, some sleuthing of the arm chair variety, some time on the Internet and websites like BuzzHospitals and apps like BuzzPharma, help you out to find out pertinent information that can be helpful in you hour of need.