Surgeon, where art thou!

I came across this very sensitive posting entitled "Advocating for better healthcare in Cameroon" at the following web address:
http://olivemedicalfoundation.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/advocating-for-better-healthcare-in-cameroon/#comment-2

"Dear friends, how many of you have been victim of medical malpractice? Had a complication because of negligence or an unqualified “docta” tried to do surgery on you? Yesterday, I met a patient who had surgery for appendicities from one of our district hospitals. Unfortunately for him, his bowel was injured and he began leaking stool. He was refered to another hospital in shock and died two days after. This is not the first lethal complication caused by this Doctor. The authority pretends to be ignorant. Many people are victim of such malpractice in Cameroon. No body mentions them and no measures are taken by the government to stop such practices. This could happen to anyone. Everybody is a Doctor in Cameroon. Have you been a victim or know someone who has been, its time to speak out. It is time we become responsible for our health and Healthcare sysyem ..."



Dear friends, sympathizers, readers,
This is unacceptable. The American healthcare system has it's faults, flaws and humps but this is exactly what I appreciate about the American healthcare system: The doctor is totally accountable and responsible for every act that he/she does and as such most doctors are quite diligent with their patients and what they do.

Unfortunately scenarios like the one reported above has become very rampant in the Cameroon society. Just a couple of yrs ago, my cousin was "killed" by a doctor. He went in for an ELECTIVE chest wall cyst excision never to walk out of the hospital. He died during surgery. NO ONE till today including the so called doctor ever gave any reasonable explanation as to what happened during surgery that killed this teenage boy. It is ridiculous! Again, this begs for the need of more surgeons in Cameroon since now, any doctor basically gets up one morning and wears a surgeon's hat then go on butchering people. If you're to operate, be ready to deal with the complications, and that's what the rigorous training of a surgeon prepares one for. If you operate enough, you'll come to have a complication but face it head on! don't try to push it by the side and pray that it goes away because guess what? It'll go away alright but this, at the cost of the patient's life hence, in my book, equivalent to murdering a patient. If you took the hippocratic oath and swore to "do no harm" then leave the scalpels to those who would use it for saving patients lives, don't turn it into a killing weapon please.
Do not get me wrong; there're situations where the doctor or surgeon does everything possible to save a patient but all efforts fail and THAT, is understandable. What I cannot stand is a doctor acting irresponsible or not shouldering their responsibility as the one who operated on my cousin or the victim in the above scenario. Also, having thesame complication from a procedure over and over should RING A BELL that you better quit doing that procedure all together till you get more training, find our why you keep having same complication. What you CANNOT DO is maintain the status quo and keep on doing thesame thing, NO way!

Thanks for reading and your thoughts are welcomed.