Unhealthy customer relations in health industry
“To make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful or perfect. You just have to care” — Mandy Hale
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A survey in the country’s public health institutions indicates that health workers, especially nurses and receptionists, lack customer care. Few have proved how worthy and noble the profession is by adding a touch of professionalism but many simply lack the rudiments of the profession.
They have contributed to the flight to patients’ death. So far some doctors have lived up to some level of wholesome customer care to patients while some are just in the profession for whatever reason.
The health institution is a noble professional outfit that must have trained compassionate and loving people. Owing to some scenic attractions between some health workers and patients, it is admitted that every profession is a calling. If you’re not called you can’t fit into the profession. There have been scenes where nurses have heckled helpless patients, or chided them. There was a scene where a nurse gave medicine to an aged weak-looking patient who was on admission. Right before my eyes, water splashed on the uniform of the nurse when the cup fell from the patient’s hand. The next thing I saw was that the angry nurse pushed the head of the patient and scolded him. I was stupefied by the scene and just stood gazing sheepishly at her.
I found out the patient was 72 years old. I was driven by emotion and enquired from the nurse why she scolded the patient. “Sir, these patients worry us a lot. They don’t listen to simple instructions we give them and they’re very stubborn,” she said.
What an irresponsibly callous response! In fact, I counselled her never to be harsh to patients but to rather be compassionate.
I have seen few nurses who have been caring to patients. However, the majority have been very disrespectful and harsh.
Compassion as first aid
Patients are already bedevilled with so much anxiety and thoughts and they need care and compassion as first aid that facilitates their healing.
Worthy of mention is the lackadaisical attitude and negligence to work at the country’s health institutions, nurses, receptionists and even doctors who stay on their phones talking for long durations when patients are waiting even in emergencies. I have been a witness to such gruesome scenes.
There was an occasion where I had to confront nurses who were on phone while a moaning patient was waiting. I lambasted them and told them to travel overseas and see how patients were cared for. To my surprise, all the patients present chorused in my defence. “Hmm Sir, this is what we’re going through in this hospital. You come here from morning and wait for long. They don’t respect the patients.”
Personal experience
I had a referral from a public health institution (a three-hour journey) to another for a test. I underwent the test and was given a sealed envelope containing the result. The laboratory technician directed me to a nurse to submit the sealed results to be forwarded to a specialist physician for interpretation, adding that it would take three days. I went back to take the results. Lo and behold, my presence immediately awoke the male nurse from his coma. He had forgotten to forward the results to the doctor. He quickly apologised, “Oh Sir, I forgot to give your test to the doctor for interpretation. It is still here on my desk. Please forgive me. Okay, please wait I would quickly go and give it to him.” I waited in a queue for four hours before he brought a sealed result. I fumed with rage and could have punched him, if I hadn’t restrained myself.
I disdainfully snatched the envelope from him but was convinced it contained my result. As I was leaving the premises and about to travel, I broke the seal of the envelope to satisfy my curiosity of its contents. Shockingly that wasn’t my result but that of a woman with her name boldly written on it.
I rushed back to alert him. “Oh Sir, sorry, I mistook it for yours. Sorry Sir. Please sit down and let me look for yours.” For thirty minutes he was going up and down looking for my test. He finally got it and I had to wait again for one hour to have my result. Health workers in Ghana must know that the profession is a noble calling which should come with compassion and love towards patients. If they don’t have such qualities, they must relocate to other ventures.
Showing compassion, love and care to patients prepares them emotionally to be receptive to medication as a factor of efficacy of cure.
The other issue is that most of the consulting rooms are mostly empty, with one or two doctors at post. Patients go to the hospital early in the morning and wait for the doctor who may report in the afternoon.
It is a fact that all these situations contribute to patients’ death. President Akufo-Addo, during the May Day celebration, enumerated some unwholesome Ghanaian attitude towards work and called for attitudinal change.
Let us all change our attitudes towards work to develop our country.
The writer works with the Information Services Department.
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