God Complex

I have spent about 15 years of my life developing systems for the Health Care industry and after being out of it for a few years, I was horrified by the scenario that happened to my mother-in-law. It seems the care is no longer in healthcare at all. On Thursday 5 December in the evening during the load-shedding and Gauteng floods, my wife received a call from her mother’s friend saying her mom is unresponsive and the paramedics need to rush her to hospital. The Paramedics requested which hospital to take her to. The initial request was to be taken to Linmed as she had been there before and we knew it was covered by the medical aid, but the Paramedics informed us she is having seizures and they need to get her to hospital immediately and the Linmed was too far. We agreed to get her the closest hospital being Dalview. At Dalview, they stabilized her and did the scans to try determine what the underlying problem was. After scans and tests, they believed she was having strokes and seizures. At this stage they tried to admit her to Dalview hospital, but the medical aid refused as this is not a network hospital. The Medical aid insisted she be transferred. The doctor at Dalview then tried to get her transferred to Linmed hospital, but the Physician on call (Dr Sheik) refused to see her until the next morning and told him to keep her there in casualty, not receiving appropriate care until 06:00 the next morning as he was not willing to go in to work. A call to the medical aid’s emergency number put me in contact with a team leader there. This team leader managed to negotiate with the Doctor or hospital and have her transferred to Linmed. During Visiting hours, my Wife and I went to Doctor Sheik’s rooms where his receptionist told us that he does not see nor does he call family members of patients, and it being a Friday and him being Muslim, there is no chance of us seeing him. I informed her that I have Muslim friends and they do not take the whole of Friday off. She then informed us she would leave a message for him just in case he does call else she will call us back with a diagnosis. After no call was received, we managed to get some information out of the ICU nurses as they have this non communication issue from Doctor Sheik often. On Tuesday, my mother-in-law was transferred out of ICU and we decided to try again with Doctor Sheik. We attempted to discuss my Wife’s mother’s condition with him and he immediately stopped us and told us he is not willing to discuss this with us as he had spoken to my wife’s brother for 20 minutes about this and he does not talk to more than one family member, that my wife’s brother lives a few hundred kms away and does not want to be the primary point of contact was irrelevant. According to her brother doctor actually spoke to him for under 2 minutes. At this stage the doctor became rude and more arrogant and he told us if we have a problem then we should go to the hospital manager. After relaying the entire story to the hospital manager, he claimed he would sort out the issue and get the doctor to contact us. Once again, Dr Sheik did not make contact. We contacted the hospital manager again who informed us that he has no authority over any of the doctors in the hospital and it is up to Doctor Sheik to decide if he is willing to hand this case over. We then called his rooms and left a message to inform him we wanted to change doctors as do not believe he is capable of providing health care to my wife’s mother. This had to be done via reception again and once again Doctor Sheik did not respond. After feeling the frustration and anger, we decided to take this matter further and I informed his rooms that I will be logging a complaint with the HSPCA (Health Professions Council Of South Africa). We also called the hospital managers office, which only goes to voice mail, and informed them we will be taking legal action. We finally got a response from the hospital, but they informed us that we need to approach the other doctors and convince them to take over the case as they have no authority over the doctors. There are a few items that sicken me in this process. The health of the Patient is never a priority. This doctor charges above medical aid rates for inferior service and has no compassion or empathy for any of his patients or their families. The trauma of a loved one having a stroke is not enough for doctor Sheik, you also need to accept being treated with disdain and contempt. You are held hostage by him due to your loved one being assigned to him, even though the hospital and all the staff understand how he behaves. A two-minute conversation would have prevented most of this nightmare, but some doctors believe they are a law unto themselves and have the right to treat people as they wish. They forget the care part of health care and have no regard for the damage they do to the people around them and the families of the patients. I cannot wait for the day when this doctor is treated with the same level of contempt that he treats others with and I hope this helps to resolve this god complex.