Patient Diary : To the patients on my TL, you must certainly read this. To the doctors on my TL, read and give ur input if u like. As a patient, We come across various kind of healthcare infrastructure. I will take you through as many as I have seen. Thread begins

Case 1: You walk into a nearest govt hospital near ur village. Do remember, the doctor might be very experienced, yet he will have to manage your case depending on the resource that he has at his disposal. Always keep in mind who has to be blamed in such a scenario.

Case 2: You walk into a district govt hospital, the patient load is high owing to non performing primary health care centres ( ur village hospitals). In addition to that you might have already lost crucial time of intervention by the time u reach there, they too lack infra.

Case 3: You reach state capital hospital. Still there is resource deficit in terms of manpower. Do remember we have 1 doctor per some 50000 people or so (roughly). Check how many registered doctors we have.

Case 4: You reach govt hospital cum medical colleges. Of course being multi special the case load is high. But take a glance around, interns ( they have completed their MBBS) will be seen running around. I stayed in a hospital for day, in the 8 hours the doctors couldn’t sit

for 5 mins. Remember this constitutes the major share of our healthcare infra. Ask yourself, are the doctors to be blamed for such a scenario? Heck they aren’t even paid regularly. Keep yourself in that position, would u have done that job?

Case 5: You walk into the doctors chambers who is privately practising. It is here that we can get the best of experience or worst of experience. While in a govt hospital u will have a system in place to get your grievance to be redressed, here it is ur personal choice, whether

to continue with the doctor or not.
Case 6: Private single speciality or multispeciality hospital. Here, you got to be very observant. Here you will come across doctors who are extremely polite and are gems. Be thankful there and don’t complain about the higher amount

You are paying. The cursory services requires money. For example, I have been to nearest cities where many doctors would be practising at their home, while you may have to wait for 6 to 7 hours you won’t find a toilet in the premise. Irritating right?

This is where multispeciality private hospitals give u service apart from medical service. In addition to that, in some cases you would find that ur treatment and bill is extremely lengthy and high and it happens too often. Even then, is the doctor to be blamed for that?

In all probability, it is the administration who decides the price and that need not be necessarily doctors. After you keep all of this in mind, now rewind ur memory, how many good doctors u found on ur journey and how many were really bad. I am sure the good ones will outnumber

Hence, whenever you complain be specific on what u want and who exactly to be blamed. In some extremely worrying cases, it does turn out to be extremely sad end for some patients due to dereliction of duty. In those cases too, punitive measures lies in the hands of administration

#MedTwitter Gratitude to all amazing doctors while I wish myself a safe distance from few who don’t stick to professional ethics.