For the last one year, since my family arrived here in Doha, I had to take my daughter to Hamad hospital for her checkups. She was diagnosed with cataract when she was only 1 year old, which was removed while she was back in Pakistan and for the last one year she was wearing those thick glasses.. .. +15 & + 16 number… (Tough & Difficult). Anyhow… when she turned 2, the Ophthalmologist at Hamad asked us whether we want to get her operated again (both of her eyes) to put in the Intraocular Cataract Lens (IOLs) or not … we decided to get her operated so that she gets rid of the thick glasses for the rest of her life.
The operations were scheduled on 17th and 31st May, 2008 in Rumailah. On the 17th of May, we went to the day care center of Rumailah for her Right Eye’s surgery and there in the room, my daughter and 2 more kids were the only patients. We got a bed reserved for her. The nurse asked me to go to the cashier and pay.. They took her at around 9.00 am to the operation theater and she came back after 4 hour… the doctor then told us that the operation took much extra time because he had to properly fix the lens.. but Alhamdo lillah everything went perfect…
On the bed, next to us, there was some Arab kid, who was operated and there came a family to meet him, my Goodness, those people were laughing so loud without caring that they were in the hospital’s operation theater’s area. My daughter was under anesthesia so they were not able to wake her up. I thought I should go to them and ask them to talk in a low tone… but it’s really difficult to ask the locals to do something…
On the 31st of May when we went there at 7.00 for her Left Eye’s surgery, I was shocked to see.. the number of patients waiting there in the small day care center with a few number of chairs and in a room of only 5 beds.. The patients were very small kids to aged people. Some people were standing carrying their kids because there were no more chairs available. The old people somehow managed to get the seats but rest of all were standing. Even the doctors didn’t have any place where they could check the patients.
Luckily we went at a time when we easily got a bed for her... so when she was taken for the operation, the other doctors were using the same bed for other patients. There was no arrangement for changing the bed sheets even... And for the next 2 hours we didn’t have any place to sit & wait for her because other patients needed the bed… my God, those 2 hours, we spent moving around… couldn’t sit anywhere…
The nurses there in the day care... were discharging some elderly patients after 10 minutes of their operation to get the bed for the next patient… I couldn’t believe that this is a day care of on Operation Theater… where there was no place for people to wait for their turn, they were moving from one chair to another, with the arrow marks on the eyes - they mark the eye that requires surgery.
Actually what I think happens is, the doctors keep on giving operation dates to the patients on their convenience but don’t check with the hospital whether the hospital can accommodate that number of patients or not. Or at least they should keep a gap of 2/3 hours between two appointments.
Although the health facilities here are better than in some other countries still authorities should look into things like this… where they can increase the level of communication between the hospitals and the doctors to facilitate the patients instead things become difficult.
