DOCTORS are trained to save lives. But some senior members of the profession, in Malaysia strangely, seem bent on driving the lives out of the junior ones in their charge.
Yes, in just the last two years, two housemen had ended their lives. The latest being on April 17, just two weeks after reporting for work as a houseman in a Penang hospital. Should we be surprised?
No. We love to wait for things to boil over before we act. And if the authorities do act, they shy away from telling the people what really happened. We hope this time the Health Ministry and the police tell it as it is. People need to know the truth. Besides, truth is the best of all preventions.
Don't go thinking that two is a small number. One life lost is one too many. Also, this isn't just this April's story. Toxicity in public hospitals is perhaps as old as the medical institutions in Malaysia. Well, almost.
Even specialists get abused by medical directors, though such incidents are few and far between. Like teachers, such specialists, who have seen it all, opt for early retirement.
Yes, like what the teachers are doing now. You see, Malaysia likes things to boil over. But the poor housemen — some of whom are just hours into their service — can't ask for early retirement.
Housemen's misery leads to two acts of desperation. In one, a few — and thankfully only a few — end it all. In another, a substantial number just disappear without notice.
Statistics are hard to come by, but this newspaper's report on Feb 15, 2017 gave Malaysia a glimpse of the level of toxicity in our public hospitals then. Some 400 housemen walked out of the hospital gates, stethoscopes and all. What a loss of resources.
Four hundred times 20 years of learning and training gone just like that. It is easy to say that the 400 were one undisciplined lot. But what is the story behind the story? Did the authorities find out? If they did, they never told us. Again, no surprises.
The 400 housemen weren't the only ones to succumb to the toxicity. According to Health Ministry data, 1.2 per cent of the 10,000 housemen around the country in 2017 either called it quits or were dismissed.
Small wonder, toxicity in public hospitals has become part of the work culture. Because the institutions have either allowed it to continue or have done little to end it.
Senior doctors are not going to admit that they are abusing housemen in their charge. Some defensive ones even tell us such toxic treatment is good for building character.
The audacity of it all. Nonsense, we tell these doctors. It's time the Health Ministry sent such abusive doctors to get their heads examined. How does working a 16-hour day help build character?
That is two days of work in a day. Don't these doctors know how the human body works? What men of science are these? They won't change. The only solution is for the Health Ministry to compel them to. Setting up a task force to uncover what happened to the houseman who fell to his death on April 17 is a late start.
It must go further to get rid of the toxic environment in all public hospitals. The Health Ministry can begin with showing the door to abusive doctors.