kalpanakaranna we can save time and effort

a pic of the visiting midwife on my property to see to the welfare of the pregnant lady. what a great and free service!!!


An incident where a man who works for me, fell off the bike with his pregnant wife, when a dog crossed the road and was rushed to hospital clearly brings light the idiocy of our people and the totally slavish attitude to going to hospital. The man had a wound to his knee, which a plaster would have sufficed and the woman had no superficial wounds, but the villagers around insisted and took them to the Polonnaruwa hospital and the woman has not been released only because the admitting doctor has to also release the patient. The doctor who they had seen when the accident happened had told the nurse to release the patient, but they had to follow the orders, despite three women having to sleep in a bed for lack of bed space and I would venture to say more harmful to be in the hospital than out.

This reminds me of an accident I recently had where I tripped on a sidewalk that was uneven in Colombo and fell flat injuring my body in about five places with bleeding in all, far worse than this chap’s and I just hobbled to the bus stop and got the bus home with all the cuts and bruises and walked all the way home from the bus stop. It is over a month and the broken toenail has yet to heal, but I treated it at home with no medication other than water. I could have been admitted into emergency and lost a day’s work and the corresponding effect on my business, as there is no one to stand in for me.

I have lost more than two days of work from this man, as he had to go again to get his wife who has yet to be discharged. This event has put a strain on my business, as I have to make a decision to cut a particular task in my planting program at a cost to my eventual harvest. It has further put an unnecessary strain on an already overburdened health service, and the regulations have prevented the discharge of a perfectly healthy patient.

In the US the fear of the cost would have meant the injured would not have gone to hospital. The previous excuse of doing tests to cover all the bases does not apply in managed care, as the case will be evaluated on an as needed basis. I firmly believe half the patients in a SL hospital will be discharged in the US. In SL minor injuries that should result in outpatient care are admitted only out of fear that unsanitary conditions may lead to infection. However I would challenge that overcrowded hospitals give rise to unsanitary conditions and we should be more respectful of the health care we receive and not put too much of a burden, with the obvious answer being an admission charge of Rs250 irrespective of injury to deter the superfluous.