Teen’s death illuminates state hospital woes

The death of a teenage patient at a provincial hospital last week has triggered public uproar, including drama on the social media, and at the same time highlighted severe problems in the country’s public health system, particularly at state-run hospitals.
The 15-year-old boy succumbed last Thursday to aortic rupture after being admitted to a hospital in Phetchaburi with abdominal pain. His stricken family took to the social media to complain that he’d been left to wait for hours before finally 
receiving treatment, and by then it was too late. 
The claim of inadequate hospital care ignited public outrage directed at medical personnel at the hospital. Hospital administrators denied the charge of negligence, saying that, rather than being “abandoned”, the patient had to wait for the results of his CT scan from a Bangkok hospital. They explained that he died instantly when a main blood vessel in his chest burst.
Senior local public health official Dr Prajak Wattanakul said the youth’s condition was rare, afflicting only about five people per one million, and even rarer for a teenager. “It’s normally found in adults aged 40 to 70,” he said.
This is primarily a conflict between state-hospital medical staff – who complain about a shortage of personnel and inadequate equipment – and patients and their families who complain about long waits and unsatisfactory service. 
Patience is precisely what patients need at state hospitals, where services and medicine are mostly free thanks to the universal healthcare programme. In exchange for these benefits, people seeking treatment and their loved ones in attendance must cope with nurses irritated by their heavy workload and with long waits due to the large number of people in need of care. 
On the other side of the coin, most nurses will also be feeling the grief over this latest drama. Many have expressed their feelings on the social networks. More than one nurse has been coldly asked by a weary waiting family member whether their loved one too was being “left to die” like the Phetchaburi teen. How disheartening this is for the nurses, how damaging to their work morale, can only be imagined. One nurse in Chon Buri said the brutal workload at state-run hospitals routinely drives nurses to private hospitals, where the salary is higher and work conditions are better.
From the hospital’s point of view, the teenager’s death resulted from a rare ailment. But from his family’s perspective, he died after having waited too long. The question is whether a patient with the same symptoms would die if being treated at a private hospital, where the fees are higher but the equipment and personnel are more adequate.
This case highlights the problems of staff shortage, insufficient equipment and inadequate service at government-run hospitals. Medical personnel must be more careful in screening patients and trying to determine which ones have serious, life-threatening symptoms and which require immediate treatment. The longer that patients with severe symptoms have to wait and the more likely it is they will succumb to their ailments.
It’s time for those involved to think of overhauling the state hospital system, with the goal of improving service, quality and efficiency. Medical personnel at state hospitals deserve better pay. Their workload is much heavier, and yet they’re expected to provide top-notch service. Improved welfare benefits and other incentives can also help keep hardworking medical personnel at state hospitals.