Why The Doctors’ Strike In Ghana May Be A Blessing (Part Three)

Of Charlatans, Malpractice And Strict Scrutiny

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo

The respectability accorded to the medical profession subsists on sheer myth, and this is pretty much due to the nature of our agonistic society. In the beginning were the shamans and witchdoctors with powerful healing secrets. Unwilling to share these healing methods or pass them on, they shrouded them in cabalistic magic and esoteric mediums, elevating what is mere scientific knowledge to the level of the metaphysical. They then proceeded to terrify our people with odious rituals, bunkum posturing and trombone abracadabra. They even enslaved others with ridiculous claims of ancestral sins for which the living innocent must pay the ultimate price. It is within this historical context that the people of the west arrived with their orthodox medicine. That was when our people threw away the baby with the bathwater. Instead of examining the credibility of our healing methods and refining them to suit our peculiar needs, we simply jumped on the bandwagon of western medicine without any consideration of its dangerous repercussions. Thus we exchanged our effective albeit convoluted healing methods for a dangerous foreign one.

That there are serious repercussions for the blind acceptance of western medicine, there is no shadow of doubt. Besides blatant iatrogenic consequences, there is not a single medication that does not carry its own serious effects which are sometimes more dangerous than the disease it claims to treat. You go to the hospital seeking medication for simple malaria, and you get relief from malaria by substituting it with partial blindness or even cancer. Or you go for a common cold which no doctor can cure, and you have a pill that will later give you ulcer or aggravate your diabetic condition. That is how strange diseases come to afflict our people. Come to think of it; our ancestors had no knowledge of cancer or diabetes or Aids, until these diseases were unleashed on us through western orthodox medicine.

Thus what we need is a comprehensive study of the effects of western medicine on the general health of the Ghanaian population. If we conduct such a study, we will discover that despite our heavy investment in orthodox medicine, the nation is none the better for it. New and dangerous diseases continue to arrive with western medicine. However, there are proven methods of traditional medicine that can cure most of our diseases without the concomitant harm brought on by chemical treatments. And if it were not for the cluelessness of our medical doctors, they would by now have conducted research into these alternative treatments in order to establish a system of health care based on the unique Ghanaian environment and diseases. Also, instead of co-opting maternal and antenatal care from our womenfolk who did a great job as midwives and delivered majority of us, Ghanaian doctors should have sought collaboration with these traditional midwives to effectuate maternal and ante-natal care for our expecting mothers.

But it appears that there is monopoly going on here; it will not be in any Ghanaian doctor’s interest to reduce dependence on western-style medicine or to help the population to take the destiny of their health care into their own hands. In fact, entrepreneurially speaking, doctors will be stupid to approve of traditional healing methods for the mass of our people probably because it will diminish their monopoly and social class respectability. Indeed, we can understand the doctors’ interest in mystifying healing when we consider the basic economic concept of supply and demand. The more diseases there are, the more demand there is for doctors and the more respect they get for saving lives. And which doctor will be so stupid to eradicate diseases? That will be the end of the “noble” profession of medicine. If in doubt, consider a single disease like diabetes which may be cured by genetic engineering. If doctors rather continue to treat it with useless blood sugar testing, insulin and dangerous drugs, it remains a ten billion dollar market micro-managed by the pharmaceutical industry with direct links to the doctors. You go and mess with a permanent cure through genetic science and you could even be killed for stemming the profit of the doctors and big pharmaceutical companies. The bottom line is as morbid as the secret prayer of a coffin-maker that people will die in droves! Without diseases, there will be no need for doctors, and the big profits of the pharmaceutical companies will come to an end. So who benefits most by spreading diseases? Doctors and their cronies of course, and yet there is this simplistic notion that doctors save lives when everything in research and statistics prove otherwise. Like any shrewd businessman whose profits depend on demand and supply, the doctor must also ensure that his merchandize is always in great demand. That is how to protect the interest of the “noble” profession. United States is the greatest nation on earth with trillions of dollars devoted to the state of the arts medical treatment. Yet the country is afflicted by the most complex of diseases. Most of these diseases are associated with weight which has become the number one health issue in America. Yet doctors have neither the clue nor the intention to deal with the root causes of obesity; rather, they focus on its symptoms. And so the budget continues to rise on those prescriptions that come about as a result of the multitude of diseases associated with obesity. But in this respect, we Ghanaians are endowed with the obscured blessings that come with poverty in that most of our people are slim due to lack of abundant food. Were we as fat as people elsewhere, our doctors will be the first to rake in profits by prescription of fake drugs and dangerous procedures like by-pass surgery. And yet Ghanaian doctors, due to sheer diffidence, fail to grasp the opportunity to investigate the natural ways by which our people keep their bodies fit. Rather, they are busy copying the dangerous methods of their western counterparts….

It is time for the government to set up monitoring institutions to check the actual work of our doctors in order to quantify their effects on the general health of the Ghanaian populace. Their present strike action should serve as an opportunity to clean the Augean stables of doctor incompetence. And if they have indeed established clinics of their own, there is a clear case of conflict of interest. They should be made to disgorge their profits and be dismissed from the public health care system. Their referrals, whether it be for clinical procedure or for a prescribed drug, must be randomly scrutinized by third-party regulatory bodies for their integrity and appropriateness. Furthermore, those doctors collecting bribes from their patients before performing surgical operations should be identified and disciplined, and those engaged in stealing drugs and equipment to their private clinics should be arrested and prosecuted. Finally, all those doctors who have turned our hospitals into afternoon abortion clinics should be purged from the system.

As regards doctors’ remuneration, third-party regulatory bodies should be entrusted to ensure that they earn every penny according to hours of actual work. Moreover, any increase in their

pay should be commensurate with that earned by other Ghanaians. There should be no special treatment for medical doctors since every Ghanaian sacrifices one way or the other for the general good of all Ghana. Determining the quantum of wages by dint of strike action is the most stupid thing any government can do; but that is exactly what governments in Ghana have so far done in dealing with the cyclical issue of industrial actions. A group embarks on a gratuitous strike action, and the government has no will to stop their salary or to sack them. Instead the government opts to engage in obsequious pleadings with them as a prelude to rewarding them, only for the whole cycle of strike actions to rear its ugly head elsewhere. Now is the time to begin to withhold salaries of striking workers and firing them from their posts. Finally, more avenues for medical malpractice suits against doctors should be instituted. We should have clear causes of action for physician tortfeasors, and empower our people to file their claims without let or hindrance.

We should be careful not to create dangerous monsters in the doctors we have trained with tax-payer money. Rather, we should use their strike action as an opportunity to scrutinize them and to hold them accountable. The days of doctor incompetence, hero worshipping and obsequious genuflection should give way to an era of doctor discipline and accountability.

Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Juris Doctor, lives in Austin, Texas. You can reach him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com