PUT ‘NECESSARY’ TO THE
TEST
In this age of penury scotched dreams and and
foolish people, little stands out but oath honor and trust.
The unique bond between patient
and doctor is perhaps more profound even than the marriage bond because it is
not preceded by courtship. There is no written contract between the parties in
the profession of medicine, yet its tradition is so wedded to the spirit of
civilization that people daily put their lives in the hands of doctors they
have never met before.
Think on that. You share intimate secrets, yield your body, submit to
surgical procedures in which crucial innards are probed and examined by
strangers whiule anesthesia is administered and
monitored by someone you have never seen.
There is no communication between
human beings on the face of the earth as unique as that between doctor and
patient.
One must not scoff at such a
relationship yet there are those that do. One must not stint with such a
service yet it is being bled and shredded
by the money-minders. They come in several guises: bureaucrats who have
enacted and supervise the Certificate of Need (CON); administrators in charge
of hospital coffers; doctors schooled in the ethics of cost-conscious medical
economics where on is trained to worry lest there is a cost overrun in an
attempt to heal a sick child.
The money minders mindlessly
hoard hospital facilities and ration the rate at which health care can be
dispensed. The administrators have to show black ink and if it results from a cutback
in services, a shortage of linens,
frugality in the kitchen, failure to stock certain medications or foot-dragging
at the purchase of new equipment it is justified on the basis of mission -- to save money.