There a strange sensation of 'Alice in Wonderland' quality about living in Guyana. Logically things that shouldn't happen, happen and you ponder about it for a while and resolve to go and queue up outside Barrack St.
So when our profession was beginning to be openly infiltrated by the unqualified we made representation to the Minister of Health who seemed glad for an select audience to blow his trumpet to - in assuring us that he was on top of the matter-- he was-- he introduced a limited program which would open the door to half-grasped ideas and the further unqualified who realised that the Government would do nothing, within that year-- he digressed to pat himself on the back for introducing legislation for cutting down the self-styled 'herbalists'.
So today's headline in the trashiest newspapers proclaims that a woman has died as a result of visiting one such clinic.
The Guyanese public, unwilling to trust a qualified doctor- the few that are around- second guess by seeking second opinions and herbalists, who themselves may be unaware of potentiating effects of their 'herbs' or that their 'patients' would so believe them that they would stop taking the conventional medicines!
Of course, there is always the danger that the patient was doomed to die anyway but at any rate lax enforcement has certainly encouraged the emergence of the quacks and it looks like Guyana will follow the way of medicine elsewhere--- a bifurication: free and dodgy or paying through your nose and dodgy.
So when our profession was beginning to be openly infiltrated by the unqualified we made representation to the Minister of Health who seemed glad for an select audience to blow his trumpet to - in assuring us that he was on top of the matter-- he was-- he introduced a limited program which would open the door to half-grasped ideas and the further unqualified who realised that the Government would do nothing, within that year-- he digressed to pat himself on the back for introducing legislation for cutting down the self-styled 'herbalists'.
So today's headline in the trashiest newspapers proclaims that a woman has died as a result of visiting one such clinic.
The Guyanese public, unwilling to trust a qualified doctor- the few that are around- second guess by seeking second opinions and herbalists, who themselves may be unaware of potentiating effects of their 'herbs' or that their 'patients' would so believe them that they would stop taking the conventional medicines!
Of course, there is always the danger that the patient was doomed to die anyway but at any rate lax enforcement has certainly encouraged the emergence of the quacks and it looks like Guyana will follow the way of medicine elsewhere--- a bifurication: free and dodgy or paying through your nose and dodgy.
No comments:
Post a Comment