We need to treat the docs better

AFTER two years, it’s the best of times for doctors. They are finally able to breathe easy and were able to go home for Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

The pesky personal protective equipment has come off, and they can be in their Raya finery and comfortable work clothes.

Better yet, almost 4,200 permanent positions have been opened up for contract doctors while some 10,000 of them have had their contracts extended from 2021 to 2023.

However, it’s also the worst of times for doctors.

Two junior doctors died in Penang recently, the latest case being one falling to his death from a high-rise unit near the upmarket Times Square.

He had been a houseman at the Penang Hospital for just over a week.

His death comes after another houseman, who was in his 20s, was found dead in Bukit Jambul three weeks after resigning from his job at the same hospital in December 2020.

We have to ask: What the Dickens is going on?

Are young doctors really being pushed beyond their limits? Are they being made to perform impossible tasks?

We have no idea if the deaths are related to work pressures, but the questions remain.

Being a doctor is tough to begin with. Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, doctors have been risking their lives fighting the virus.

Many have died of the disease over the last two years.

We have seen so many pictures of doctors slumped over their desks and in corners of hospitals, totally exhausted from taking care of patients.

They have had to work non-stop to save lives. There is no reason why anyone – least of all the system – should add to the pressure they face.

Housemen, we are told, face the brunt of the hardship. They are at almost the bottom rung of the hospital food chain, lower even than nurses who often abuse them.

They have horror stories to tell. They have to work extremely long hours – sometimes from 7am to noon the next day, a total of 29 hours. And they get little appreciation.

The bosses (read senior doctors or MOs) don’t give a damn. They won’t brook any mistakes.

One doctor, who was once a houseman at the Penang Hospital, talked about times he had to work in a ward, collecting blood samples from 20-odd of the more than 30 patients.

He had to start drawing blood at 2am and finish before 5am.

Then, he had to rush the samples to the lab, which was a distance away, only to collect the results two hours later at 7am.

He had to get them ready for the senior doctor who would show up at 8am, expecting everything to be in order.

They could not fall back on nurses either. Most were busy with their own work and some were downright rude when asked to help.

“You are the doctor. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to do this, they would chide us.

“If we fail to trace any sample, we would be scolded by the MO and it would go into our records,” he added.

“And we might get extended at that posting, which would not be good for our future.”

Housemen are often expected to memorise results of patients’ medical tests, things like their blood counts and medical conditions, and not read from the charts.

“It’s tough, but the senior doctors want us to really know our patients. For some housemen, that’s almost impossible because they get rotated from ward to ward every other day.”

Doctors have to spend at least two months in six different postings – medical, surgical, orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, and one more from between anaesthesiology and the emergency department.

Medical and surgical, the doctor said, were the toughest.

But that is only to be expected because lives are involved. These departments treat critically ill patients who need crucial, instant decisions.

The question that has to be asked is: Are we asking too much of our young doctors? Are the hours just too long and inhumane, as many have complained?

Penang executive councillor for health Dr Norlela Ariffin seems to think so. She, in fact, claims it has become a culture.

She says there is a more “humane” work-life balance for young doctors in countries like the United Kingdom.

An Australian-based doctor agrees. He says juniors there only work 50 to 55 hours a week and a maximum of eight hours at a stretch.

Malaysia’s Health Ministry had once set the limit at 70 hours. That’s about 10 hours every day of the week, or 15 hours a day in a five-day week.

However, even that, apparently, has long since been forgotten and some claim they clock up to 100 hours a week.

To be fair, we must agree that young doctors have to be tested to their limit to ensure that they are ready to become physicians.

After all, the lives of thousands of patients will be in their hands.

Very high standards have to be set. And only those with the wherewithal to be a doctor should be in the business, not just anyone whose parent loves the idea of having a doctor in the family.

But there is a limit to how hard you can push a human, especially a young one who may be more of a bookworm than street-smart.

There is a need for a relook at how young doctors are treated. And only the worthy should strive to be doctors.

Others should take a leaf from Marcus Kwok and move elsewhere.

Marcus Kwok? He is, well ..., was a Hong Kong doctor who has lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

He gave it all up to become an actor. He ended up acting largely as a doctor, dentist or gynaecologist.

Acting as a doctor, I guess, is far easier than being one.

We should be acting too – to ensure that the doctor’s life becomes easier.