The Cost of Medical Treatment in a Private Hospital
You were young and brimming with health and vitality as you went to bed the previous night. You had not a care in the world, because you never left anything to chance.
At four o’clock that morning the sharp excruciating pain which you had never experienced before woke you and you knew immediately you had to be rushed to a private hospital for urgent attention or else succumb to the pain there and then. The State hospital was definitely out of the question because you had read so many gruesome stories and the nursing staff had to be avoided at all costs. Your Nearest and Dearest is ever willing to transport you to the nearest private hospital.
As you are ushered into the triage section of the trauma unit the clerk, with his outstretched hand, almost demands, that you produce your medical scheme membership card as though it was a foregone conclusion that you had one. Of course you did not have any medical aid because you are so young and healthy. There was never a need to visit a doctor, let alone a hospital.
Your Nearest and Dearest , in the meantime is dutifully completing paperwork at the reception cubicle where he is looked upon distrustfully when he discloses that you do not have medical scheme membership.
The reception staff, which, as your luck will have it, includes the duty credit controller, huddle out of earshot to, obviously, discusses your impertinence of calling at this hospital without medical aid membership. There are the surreptitious glances in your direction which confirm your suspicion.
This is when your problems begin in earnest. The excruciating pain that forced you out of bed which seems ages ago, pales to comparison to the demands by the duty credit controller for you to pay a deposit of R40 000.00. This is before a diagnosis of any kind has been made. The doctor will not make an appearance until he is sure payment has been made. The pain is numbing your senses as thoughts of the Hippocratic Oath, or is Hypocrite’s Oath come to mind. Do doctors really take an oath before enrolment into this supposedly noble profession?
Demands are made for you to pay immediately, interspersed by a saline drip being inserted in anticipation of payment, and also to keep up the pretence that you are being attended to lest you get some crazy notion like telephoning tabloids with some far-fetched idea that you are being “turned away at the inn.”
The relentless demands for the deposit reach a crescendo as the credit controller now has the gall to suggest that you go to an ATM to draw the money -the pain you are going through is the least of her worries. Your enquiries on when a doctor is going to see you are met by half-hearted assurances that he is in the hospital and is on his way.
As time goes by, you will realize that the treatment or feigned attention has waned and become patently aware that attention is focussed on your cubicle, but no attempt is being made to alleviate the pain. Any complaints from your quarter will result in the cheapest painkiller being infused into your saline solution. Then the wait on your next move begins. The only acceptable move will be for you to come up with the magic R40 000.00 deposit.
When you have finally settled in the ward after having been seen by the doctor who magically appeared, you will ponder on a few things. Foremost in your mind will be that medical aid membership is not a luxury anymore but a necessity, whether you are young, healthy or sickly.
You will also contemplate on the cost of medical treatment in a private hospital. When considering the cost you will include synonyms such as damage, expense, detriment, suffering and effort, because the whole experience will include all these.
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