{"id":98468,"date":"2013-08-04T00:04:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T18:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=98468"},"modified":"2013-08-06T19:41:56","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T14:11:56","slug":"bring-your-own-catheter-or-obstetrical-care-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/bring-your-own-catheter-or-obstetrical-care-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cBring Your Own Catheter,\u201d Or Obstetrical Care In Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

Not so long ago I wrote at some length about the fact that my neighbours and I are reduced to repairing the roads supposed to serve us so that even a bullock cart could traverse them.\u00a0 This continues to require volunteer labour by those who can least afford to forego a day\u2019s wages in such a pursuit.\u00a0 Not for us roads carpeted for the use of Lambhorginis, BMWs and (after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting<\/a><\/span>) Rolls Royces in which \u201cthe chosen\u201d travel!<\/p>\n

Now, we have an even more sinister and cruel expansion of the \u201cDIY (Do-It-Yourself)\u201d principle, this one in the sphere of public health, with a slight difference \u2013 it is \u201cBIY (Bring-It-Yourself)\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cP,\u201d a middle-aged employee was not her usual cheerful self a few morning\u2019s ago and her ill-humour appeared more than justified when she told my \u201cother half,\u201d the closest thing to a \u201cfoster-mother\u201c our female employees have, what ailed her.<\/p>\n

Her youngest daughter was about to have her first baby which would be P\u2019s fourth grand-child.\u00a0 Due to the intricacies of traditional pre-delivery practices in the matter of who the mother-to-be stays with before the birth and the fact that the father worked away from home, her first-born would be greeting the world at a teaching hospital in the Hill Capital.<\/p>\n

Sounded like a good arrangement which would ensure up-to-date facilities and good care by skilled doctors and support staff.<\/p>\n

However, all was not, as that old colloquialism has it, \u201ctickety-boo.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was the little matter of what needed to be brought to the hospital prior to the mothr-to-be being admitted.\u00a0 The list was a little longer, more comprehensive and \u201cspecialized\u201d than the typical one that mothers-to-be usually put together \u2013 baby clothes, nappies, soother, feeding bottle etc.\u00a0 Oh, no this certainly was a LOT different!<\/p>\n

There were THREE <\/strong>lists given to the mother-to-be and I am reproducing them all because that should provide any reader with the extent (and cost) that use of our \u201cfree\u201d medical system entails:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see the list is pretty extensive and the costs add up in a hurry. \u00a0A minority of the items listed \u2013 such as toothpaste, toothbrush, personal clothes, baby layette etc. \u2013 are those usually brought along by someone entering a maternity ward.\u00a0 However, a significant part of the list, particularly given a brief anticipated stay in hospital for a common enough procedure, could, justifiably, be considered \u201cextravagant.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cP\u201d told us that she anticipated a cost of approximately Rs. 10,000 for the items that, in another time in the same circumstances, would have been provided by the hospital.<\/p>\n

To say that I was a bit surprised would be to seriously understate the case.\u00a0 When a patient is expected to bring along such as a catheter from goodness-knows-where, the matter of asepsis does come to mind even if one belongs to the three-score-and-ten brigade where cognitive capacity is beginning to fade!\u00a0 Is it surprising that this same hospital completely closed down an Opthalmological ward not so long ago because of an outbreak of a very serious infection of some kind?<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d heard it all a couple of years ago, when I asked a nurse for some water for a patient I\u2019d brought in, to swallow some pills that had just been given him and was asked, in shocked surprise, \u201cDidn\u2019t you bring your own water?\u201d\u00a0 That was a rather surprising inconvenience.\u00a0 This new regimen seems to presage something more serious by far, considering the \u201cBIY\u201d was relative to water and in a small rural hospital, whereas the \u201cBIY\u201d, this time, was in a Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka\u2019s Hill Capital!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that there is a statue of George E de Silva, a one-time Minister of Health in (then) Ceylon\u2019s cabinet not so far from this hospital.\u00a0 I rather doubt that, apart from the usual \u201cbaby layette\u201d and the mother\u2019s clothes, expectant mothers were expected to bring anything else to this supposedly-prestigious institution to deliver a child in the days that he held that portfolio.\u00a0 And that was in the mid-forties\u00a0 \u00a0of the last century, about 70 years ago!<\/p>\n

I cannot but juxtapose the lack of essentials for mothers-to-be in this hospital with the fact that a very ambitious project is afoot, with the highest in the land as patrons, to establish an oncology ward at this very same facility.\u00a0 One would think that you \u201ctended to the knitting\u201d first before you launched ambitious schemes for expansion, no matter how justified.\u00a0 Ah, but then, this is the Debacle of Asia<\/a><\/span> and we have to demonstrate our lack of proportion and indifference to the circumstances of poor people every step of the way!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":93580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cBring Your Own Catheter,\u201d Or Obstetrical Care In Sri Lanka - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/bring-your-own-catheter-or-obstetrical-care-in-sri-lanka\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cBring Your Own Catheter,\u201d Or Obstetrical Care In Sri Lanka - 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