A Day at the Doctor's........

Pakdokter was having a mild "sticky left eye" when pakdokter left for Bali last week. It was mildly itchy and pakdokter assumed that it was probably an allergic conjunctivitis as the other eye was not affected nor was it passed on to pakdokter's partner. But after one week and upon return from Bali - the left eye was still red and itchy and pakdokter did not want to risk the problem becoming aggravated and causing more serious complications. So pakdokter made a visit to one of the private hospitals near pakdokter's residence.

Approaching the front-desk, pakdokter was impressed by the efficiency and speed at which pakdokter was directed to the available eye-specialist there. Pakdokter only asked for the list of eye-specialists who practised there ( and being one of the more senior and soon-to-retire members of the medical profesion, pakdokter did not recognise any of the names of the specialists who obviously belong to a much younger crop of doctors) and asked to see whoever was immediately available as pakdokter did not want to have to wait too long. Creating the new file for pakdokter took a wee bit of time and the doctor ( who seemed to be wanting to rush somewhere else) saw pakdokter immediately.

He immediately saw that pakdokter had a red eye - directed pakdokter to sit in front of the eye-examining machine - put a drop of red dye into both eyes - and looked at pakdokter's eyes through the other side of the lens of the optical machine. At the same time he asked how long had the eye been red. Then he told pakdokter not to eat prawn and crabs, not to share pakdokter's towel with anyone and not to sleep in the same bed with pakdokter's partner. He said he will give pakdokter an eye ointment to be applied twice a day for 10 days and a little bottle of eye-drops to be applied 4 to 5 times a day for the next 10 days. By the time this finished pakdokter's newly created file came in and he scribbled his notes and prescriptions and charges for his nurse to complete the remaining instructions.

Pakdokter took the chance to ask him whether it was an allergic conjunctivitis ( since he asked pakdokter not to eat prawns and crabs which happened to be one of pakdokter's many favourite foods) - he said no but it was a viral conjunctivitis and quite likely to affect the other eye also and can spread to others. And he said he had been seeing quite a bit of these cases lately especially after the recent outbreak of 'haze' from the spell of hot weather recently. With that he quickly walked out to his next destination and told pakdokter that pakdokter need not come back for a follow-up.

This whole contact, to pakdokter's estimate - was not more than 5 minutes at the most. Waiting for the prescriptions and the bill at the counter took about 30 minutes and walking to the pharmacy and waiting to be given the prescriptions took another 15 minutes.

And it cost pakdokter RM210 - RM130 for the consultation fees and RM80 for the medicines.

Pakdokter had been lucky with an almost 60 years of good health. Pakdokter, in all his life, had rarely gone to the doctor and being a doctor and being married to one also helped. Many of the more common medical conditions which pakdokter came down with were self-managed.

This blog posting was written as an observation of what a patient had to go through and how ( at least in this case) the staff attending to patients treated the patient, and this is also pakdokter's thoughts and feelings about it. It is also an observation of how things have changed over time......

1. This private hospital has ample cark-park so parking was not a problem unlike another hospital which pakdokter had gone to some time ago. The front desk reception was efficient and gave good clear answers and directions to pakdokter's requests. Filling up the form to open a new file was easy and quick - perhaps because pakdokter knew what to fill in and the fact that no insurance claims forms need to be filled in and no insurance eligibility need to be checked out also helped.

2. But pakdokter must say that the doctor-patient contact could have been much better. Pakdokter did not expect the doctor to give pakdokter more of his precious time but how pakdokter had wished that he had explained a little more of what pakdokter was suffering from. No effort was made to tell pakdokter how to apply the cream into pakdokter's eyes etc and probably pakdokter did not look clever enough for him to explain what pakdokter was suffering from except to say it was not an allergic reaction and even that was a response from pakdokter's reflex questioning upon his advise not to eat crabs and prawns.

3. And medical fees have really sky-rocketed from the days pakdokter left medical school 34 years ago! Then for a problem like this one would probably get an almost similar treatment for RM20 to RM30 at the GP clinic and a visit to the Eye Specialist would at most probably cost at most RM100. Pakdokter wonders how people afford medical cost these days.

4. The pharmacists, have for years, been clamouring for their rights to be allowed to prescribe and dispense medicines to the patients as they are rightly trained to do so. As pakdokter got very little information from pakdokter's doctor as to how to apply the ointments and drops, perhaps, pakdokter hoped, the white-coated pharmacists would do a better job. Perhaps pakdokter was expecting too much from this private hospital - the pharmacist merely dished out the prescription and read out instructions as printed out on the box. Maybe she thought pakdokter could not read!

Yes, things have changed greatly in pakdokter's profession......