Saturday, November 6, 2010

The General Behavior of Public & Patients towards Doctors or any outsider professional in Maldives.


If I say that the general public of Maldives is retched or bad behaving then it will not be total truth. Apart from a few of them 99% are very bad behaving. Not only doctors, there are quite a few teachers also coming from outside Maldives and they also have to bear with all the things these people do to us all.

Some Glimpses of patient behavior:
1.     A healthy girl of 18 years of age comes to the consultation room with C/O   1 episode of vomiting with pain epigastrium and the fact that she has not eaten anything since last 8 hours(by the way these stupids are so funny when it comes to address the issue of food. They know only fish and red chilly and coconut in this world and naturally when they get gastritis out of this combo them they simply stop eating as long as possible and hence every person here is having gastritis). Now see what she is saying (speaking loudly and with greater authority than you, not requesting) for “ I have vomited and I want IV fluid”…that’s it. If you don’t give even NS or DNS, then they can shout and cry so much that the Health Ministry (Consisting of people like her only) may consider you incompetent and try to change your place of working
Want proof??? Here is it coming; A friend of mine, posted in an Atoll Hospital in some southern part of Maldives, was harassed by the management just because someone brought a child of 4 years of age with so called history of vomiting & loose motions (they tell like he has vomited 15 times and passed 8 watery motions) although the child is not looking dehydrated or inactive. He was still playing happily inside the consultation room. But hence it was already 10 PM and the parents of the child didn’t want any hassles they barged inside the consultation room with an order “ADMIT….”. Now the doctor evaluated the child’s condition, advised anti-emetics, ORS etc and gave the prescription to the father of the child. That man took this prescription and threw it over the table, beating the table with his clenched fist and started shouting “ADMIT…” “ADMIT….”. The translator is not saying even a single word to him to stop behaving like this. That man now threatened to tear everything apart if his child was not admitted. The doctor took respite in ordering admission, feeling terrified, with IV Fluid Isolyte P 40 ml/hr. Now the man is shouting that where is the medicine written in order? He knows that IV fluids are IV fluids..now some medicines must be added too. Ultimately this matter was raised with the Management (??) the next day and within 2 weeks the doctor was sent to some empty island where they don’t have electricity for more than 8 hours in a day. This was supposed to be the punishment for him for not being competent enough. He ultimately finished his remaining term of contract (4.5 months) somehow and went back to India to never return back to these animal’s land.

2.     Patient will come with complains like “I think I am having appendicitis”. Now you explain him/her that even if we suppose he may be actually having the appendicitis, he must have some symptoms supporting this diagnosis. But no, he had one episode of pain in Right Inguinal Region two days back and hence he thinks he is having appendicitis so you have to treat him. God forbid if you tell him that he has no appendicitis….this statement may have consequences.

3.     Patient says he feels there is something inside his thigh, means you have to cut the said place and explore for an imaginary foreign body and then suture it. All this because the patient actually wants some leave or something (even the desire to get sympathy from her wife or for instance he has done some crime and wants to seek forgiveness from his family members so better to get something of this sort done and divert their mind from his current crime) and he decided to get that like this.
     
Now, as far as general public is concerned, they don’t like outsiders here. And we Doctors are also outsiders here.

What they actually do is they try to behave rudely with us, try to frighten us with their deeds and behavior, shout in their language and say bad words to you in public and all will start laughing over the occurrence just to demoralize you. Things like that. And I firmly believe that they will be quite happy if we leave from here. Their government is forcibly (applying force on them to accept us on their islands) keeping us here.

For instance;
1.     Take my example: Someone (??) throws some solid object (supposedly a dry coconut or stone)  over the roof of that room where I reside in between 02:00 AM to 03:30 AM almost every night. It makes such a horrible sound when that thing falls over the tinned roof that it can freeze your blood if you are sleeping and are awakened with this sound. Sounds terrifying, right?? It actually is terrible. I get palpitations whenever I get up with that horrible sound. There is no policing available here. So, always I worry about my life. This guy can come inside sometime also. Two three times someone knocked over the door of my room (Here every place is a room only. They construct rooms which opens on road. That’s it. There is no concept of a closed house here at most of the places.) at 03:00 AM. Knocks come on the glass window as well. When I don’t open up then this shade of a person moves away from that window. I have seen the shade a few times, wandering here and there. If by that sound no one is coming to help me, who will help me if he barges inside my room per force some day? No one. I think I have not slept peacefully since last 1 month. I wait for this thing to happen before I can go to sleep. It does not happen if my lights are on. I have already experimented with it. Only when my lights are out, he or she will throw this thing over the roof. So, I switch off my lights at around 01:30 AM and wait for it, then again after it has happened, I need 15 – 30 minutes to calm down and after it only I lay down or try to fall asleep.

2.     One of the nurses we are having here has multiple times observed that some particular group of youth is always waiting for her near the health center and it simply follows her to her room making some sort of comments in their own language. Once she tried to remember the exact wordings and asked the meaning from a local Maldivian staff. Guess what…it was one of the ugliest thing which we could have listened in life. Such vulgar parallels are not available in Hindi (my mother tongue). Since so many days they were doing this to her. Now she stays put in health center or takes another route with some other staff after her duty finishes up.$ But even after that no one has tried to talk with those hooligans to stop this kind of routine.  

3.     There are so many drug addicts here. They are always prowling over roads (if you can call those lanes filled with sand & mud a road) after evening with un-kept look and long hair and cigarette in hand. One of my friends told me that over his island almost every home is having one or two known addicts. People stop him over the road and nicely ask for money. He can not do anything else. No one comes to help. So, he every now and then ends up paying them 2 – 5 dollars and saving his life. He has to go to shop in evening when less public can see him on road. In last 5 months since when he has been sent over that island he has saved himself by paying up 6 times by now. God only knows what will happen if someday they catch him without money. There is no policeman to be called to help. Their most of the islands are not covered by policemen. Only 15 – 20 bigger ones among almost 300 inhabited islands is having 5 – 7 policemen’s team and a police station and a court but anyway there is no defined law in this country. These fellows beat the policemen up if they try to stop them from doing anything so even police is a bit helpless here even if it is present.

4.     An additional story to read; there was one instance when two teachers of Indian origin were sitting near the jetty over an island (in south Maldives) when 4 hooligans tried to push them in ocean and take their watches and wallet. One of the teachers showed courage and started fighting with them and eventually these hooligans ran away. Like every muslim contingent, the cowardness and treachery with ruthlessness is prevalent here also. If you raise a hand you can really frighten them up. Now, after this episode they both waited there on the jetty for a while and then decided that they should register their complain of the incident to the Island Office (obviously there is no police station over the island). But guess what, the bastard lads had reached there before them and ultimately the matter reached the ministry of labor & education. One of the teachers (who had resisted the robbery actually)was terminated sighting the reason that he is not a good teacher. The second one was transferred to another school sighting the reason that he used to have bad eyes for female students and the island people didn’t want him to be teaching in that school. 

5.     Another horrible story; Here people from Bangladesh are considered as servants. Usually each household is having one servant and 99% of them are Bangladeshis. Here men & women are having sexual relationships with almost entire possible contingent available locally. Not only before marriage, but even after marriage they continue their rendezvous with all of them, past & present lovers and spouses. They simply have to taste everyone. They lure foreign nationals also with all sort of provocation (The translator here, who is 21 years old and twice married already has tried to show her breasts quite a few times to me and she keeps staring over my eyes in case my gaze eventually falls on her.) be it a male or a female.
Now….one woman got one Bangladeshi in her bed somehow. Maybe he was at fault or maybe she. But one day her husband came to know about this and you can not imagine what happened next.
They took the boy, dragged him in an open field, started beating him up and pelting stones over his head until he was dead and then by kitchen knives 5 – 6 people cut his body parts (nose, ears, intestine, his testicles etc) in small pieces and all the males available there took one small part by one in their hands, all red with his blood and started shouting victory sounds. One fellow who has seen the incident told that the most horrible thing he saw from them was that someone took the cheeks out with lips and all intact and was trying to tear it apart by his own hands and was blowing wind through that piece of flesh over people around him so that they could bathe in the small blood droplets which were oozing out from this piece of meat. Then they went to ocean for fishing together in front of the entire island’s watch, using his small body parts as bait for fish. This entire thing was duly filmed and made converted into a CD (remember the throat slitting CD of that American journalist in Afganistan region which those talibanis had uploaded over internet for people to watch their bravery???) and was circulated in Maldives. This happened almost 2.5 years ago. People still remember it here and they site this example to terrify us that if anything we do which will not be of their liking then we can end up like this. Specially Medical personnel. Anybody can die anytime anywhere by anybody’s or even nobody’s fault by the way. I don’t know how much this story should be considered related to us but if that form of cruelty is readily available and can be evoked then better to beware.

6.     My sisters were telling one day that whenever someone comes here for IV Canula fixation, they will say it pains or it is not fixed properly if it has been done by a non- muslim nurse. When a muslim nurse, even if of foreign origin, is doing the same thing, the canula is ok. There is similar attitude with doctors also. If they have a few doctors among which there is a muslim, they will flock there for treatment. It happens all the time in atoll hospitals here. Everywhere. Even if you come to work and reach ministry, they will keep all the muslims near Male’ or in northern part of Maldives (North & Central Maldives is supposed to be more educated and better behaving than it’s southern areas) whereas hindu doctors will be either thrown to small deprived (nothing to eat except yellow rice & potato, no milk or bread and may be even no natural ‘Atta’ or Pulses available) islands or far southern Maldives where there are non-humans dwelling. Especially South Maldives is very notorious. Non human is the accurate term; there are no other words to describe their behavior.

THIS  IS  THE  REAL  MALDIVES  DEAR  PEOPLE.  NO  ONE  WRITES  OR  SAYS   ANYTHING  ABOUT  THEM  JUST  BECAUSE  WE  DON’T  UNDERSTAND  THAT  ONLY  BY  TELLING   THESE  STORIES   TO  OTHERS  CAN  WE  HELP  OTHERS  FROM   SUFFERING  THE  SAME  FATES  AS  DESCRIBED  ABOVE.  REST  IS  UPON  US  TO  DECIDE. AND  BY  NO  MEANS  I MEAN  HERE  THAT  EACH  AND  EVERY  MALDIVIAN  IS  SAME AND BAD.  THERE  ARE  BOUND  TO  BE  GOOD  ONES  TOO. WE  SIMPLY  FAIL  TO  NOTICE  THEM OR  BITTER  THINGS  ARE AFFECTING  OUR  THOUGHTS  MORE  THAN   THE  GOOD  ONES.

2 comments:

  1. This Bangladeshi story is new for me. are you the author of that story.Why dont you go to Bollywood and become a writer.

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  2. Mr. Mohamed,
    Try to find any contact in GA Nilandhoo and ask them about there good deed in last 2 years.You may even get the copy of that CD where they are holding the parts of the intestine and liver of that man after butchering him with kitchen knives.
    It is a very happy site for you blood thirsty animals. I have seen it. Don't worry. I don't need any other evidence. And when I was over that island myself, on a deputation, I had to face one of the butchers in my OPD shouting in pain due to gastritis. I wanted to ask him directly that if he was having so intense pain just by a pain epigastrium, how must that fellow would have felt when he was cutting his ears?
    But I did not do so. They could have harmed me as well.

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