What will the new year bring?

The year ending tonight has been one which has brought much suffering to many of us, not just because of illness, but a lot because of the great many inadequacies in our health system. The cost of human loss cannot be quoted in currency, but the cost of poor health, illnesses and neglect of a system would be beyond comprehension.

Minister Ilyas has failed to deliver an improvement to the health system worth anything more than a few name boards labeled "Health Center" or "Atoll Hospital". His team at the Ministry has managed to hold back the health care standard of the country at the same place as was at a decade earlier. The medical people with him, Dr Abdula Azeez Yousuf, Dr Sheena and Dr Ahmed Razee have done little more than draw 3-4 salaries per month!!!

The truly sick in the islands, die at the hands of either incompetent health care providers or a competent provider rendered incompetent by an inadequate health care infrastructure. We are witness to the desperate cries of those who have been left to tend for themselves, we are among them ourselves.

Our premier health institution, IGMH, has won not our hearts, but our anger and hatred for its display of contempt with our needs and wishes. It is little wonder that IGMH has had within its premises mob violence disrupt its services and physical assault cause injuries to staff. The failings of the administration and the inability of it high ranked officials to discharge their responsibilities were at least partly responsible for these events. Deaths, medical negligence, maltreatment and all sorts of medical errors at the institution have made their ways to the news headlines. It speaks volumes about the intentions of the management of the hospital when 2 doctors were suspended for voicing concerns about malpractices happening within the Hospital. Dr Mohamed Solih, Dr Fathmath Ali Didi, Dr Yasir and Ali Mohamed (Alibe') are responsible for the sickening state of affair at IGMH.

Can we expect anything different in the new year? Realistically the chances of that are very little. The system headed by the same individuals from the very top to the middle management level are corrupt, incompetent, selfish and untrustworthy.

One thing will be different though! We will be less tolerant of their criminal handling of our welfare in the coming year. We pledge that we will do all that we can to make sure that we hold them accountable to the people of this country. We have all suffered enough. We deserve better. We demand better.

Foreign spouse and Thalassaemia

On the pre-text of combating Thalassaesmia, Dictator Gayoom introduced discriminatory bars against Maldivians with foreign spouses, a cowardly act to cling on to power at any cost. [DO political article, 2nd sentence of the 5th paragraph]

Is this true? We couldn't find any documentation of this anywhere (our team has access to a limited amount of records). Anyway, we decided to get a medical position on this statement.

We called National Thalassaemia Center to get their opinion. Dr Farzana was not available for comment and the person who answered the phone said "there is no one else who can provide information" at the center.

We then called Ministry of Health, even though we have insiders, to get an official word. The girl who answered the call said that neither Dr Sheena (Director General of Health Services) nor Dr Azeez (Deputy Minister) were available for comment.

We then called IGMH where we were told, by PRC counter, that the only person allowed to communicate with the media was their spokesperson. That turns out to be Dr Yasir. It appears his mobile phone is on mute, as he was apparently unaware that we were calling him repeatedly.

At SHE, we were told to talk to Ms Jeehan, a counselor. She could not be contacted either.

Left on our own, we turned to a team of doctors affiliated with the Medical Investigator team. We posed the question to them.

There apparently is no truth to the inference that marrying foreigners would increase the incidence or disease burden of Thalassaemia in the Maldives. On the contrary, everyone agreed that diluting our Thalassaemia riddled gene pool with foreign genes would benefit the Thalassaemia situation.

Conclusion:
The justification or reason for the "foreign spouse bar" is not correct! It is unlikely to be the documented reason for the legal clause. Medical opinion is that the inference is false.

And Yes: being un-contactable is a fashion!