Health Society display laxity when it comes to conducting a fair judgment and probing into cases when physicians and other medical practitioners violet medical regulations and ethical standards.
This remark was made by a scholar in the field.
Professor and Chest Physician Getachew Aderaye said that , here there are many private-and-government-based health institutions that indulge in the violation of the medical ethical standards. The unethical medical practitioners are the ones who kill the country. Most of the health institutions are motivated not by ethical standards but by business-minded moral vices. In other words, money is what fuels their passion.
Adding he indicated that some countries have tight procedures on hospitals out to amass money at the expense of patients’ life. Few hospitals take advantage of the patients’ sickness to generate money. There are ways to check such inhumane and unethical acts. The government must see to the strict application of medical ethics and regulations.
As to him, the government should crosscheck and monitor the activity of hospitals and clinics. Secondly, there are medical associations, including Ethiopia Medical Association which could prevail on top of all doctors. This society should play its role as a major actor to ensure that there are no unethical acts in the medical profession.
“If a hospital and medical personnel violate the ethical standards and the regulations, the
government is duty bound to revoke their licenses and disqualify the professional in the sector. We have a toothless society in strictly maintaining the medical ethical standards. The legal body is also responsible to sniffing the unethical acts and putting the offenders before court, he added.
According to him, when health professionals graduate from medical schools, they make oath to treat patients fairly and diligently. Stewardship is expected from them. “Beyond that, we have promise to check and balance any activities in medical profession.” Ethiopia Medical Association should do its tasks appropriately to respond to the unethical acts. There should be ways to combat the unethical acts. This is a global problem. But it should be forbidden not to send down roots in developing countries as well.
Concerning the current healthcare service in the country, he pointed out that previously health care was confined to primary health service. Due attention was never given to secondary and tertiary health care services. Regarding primary health care, Ethiopia has portrayed a quantum leap. There are a number of health care stations in this country. Ethiopia can be one of the few countries to achieve satisfactory results in primary healthcare service. This enables to reach deep into grass root level.
Adding he said that secondary and tertiary health care services are mostly left to private health institutions. The government is also involved in those health care services. “Our health care service, in general, is improving.”
The government should do its tasks not accidentally, but purposely and systematically. Public private partnership
is an indispensible element to improve the health care service.
In receiving support from the government body to the private health institutions, he remarked that to support the private sector in the acquisitions of finance and land. These are important issues to encourage privately-owned health institutions and to contain the outflow of patients abroad for want of cutting-edging medical service. The government should encourage the private sector to work towards their level best to bridge the service gap.
“An estimated number of 20 thousand to 30 thousand people fly abroad to get further medical treatments or to get relief to their pains carrying bags of dollar. This indicates that many dollars outflow in an illicit manner. The money comes through informal transactions. The government is losing much money through high invoicing and low invoicing trends. Regarding the challenges the medical sector encounter, he remarked that there are always several challenges in the health sector. There are also some improvements in this sector as well. This means that there are several changes in the healthcare sector. Of course, one of the problems is the acquisition of spaces to build a private hospital. This should not be a problem as such.
He mentioned birthing such private hospitals here is the other challenge as it obligates sufficient finance. Therefore, there is not easily accessible financial support to the private owned healthcare institutions. The third hurdle is the unavailability of sufficient skilled medical workers. The system must encourage the training of doctors in various fields. Encouragement in the training sphere has to be there. After
a physical comeback home, they can serve their people not only in governmental health institutions but also in private clinics and hospitals. “We have to encouraging churning out of more and more doctors in any training program.”
When it comes to migration of doctor as a form of brain drain and brain circulation, he went on to say that the government should work to bring back physicians into their homeland. There are about unlimited general practioners and specialists diaspora doctors in North America than in here. There is a big difficult now.
He indicated that the government could not exert effort to attract the diaspora back. We have thousands of diaspora specialists working in America. Now, it is difficult to bring them back home because they need to stay there with their children. It is getting very difficult to get them back home. As they are old, they may have confident to come back. The government should do something to attract back the diaspora doctors to their homeland to assist their country. Of course, payment is also another issue. If the country plan to bring diaspora doctors here, it is difficult to offer the required payment.
As to him, Brain drain and brain circulation are not the sole problems of this country alone. It is also a conspicuous problem elsewhere in the world. Professionals including doctors go elsewhere that affords payment opportunity to get money. To combat brain drain, there should be a means to somewhat match the service and the payment. Of course, there is an improvement in terms of payment. If the doctors could receive reasonable salary and incentives, they can stay at home.
The Ethiopian Herald May 17/2020
BY MEHARI BEYENE
Health society show laxity when it comes to probing cases, passing fair judgment and assessment
