Tonight a brilliant pink moon decorates the sky, it was supposed to be a “strawberry” moon since it is said to be pink but with the naked eye it just looks extra orange to me. I badly wanted to view the moon a little longer but the clouds had better plans of engulfing the moon’s beauty and shielding her from my lustful eyes. Indeed I find the moon to be a very attractive celestial object with lots of mystery. I once heard the elders say that people with mental illness tends to get extra psychotic during the full moon, I’m not sure what is the basis of that. Other than that we usually do not purchase crabs during the full moon as the bright moon light causes crabs to have difficulty to feed on their prey and are thus skinnier and less meaty. Some biodynamic farmers also uses the moon to time their farming activities. It just so happens that my ruling planet is the moon and maybe that is why I feel rather fascinated by it.
Lately someone have consulted me regarding their health and I was flabbergasted at how some doctors treat their patients. This is a real scenario occurring somewhere in Bangladesh where a young healthy woman had a health check to confirm that she is pregnant. She was detected to be anaemic during her checkup but was not given any medications such as iron supplements to help boost her iron stores. The worst part was not subjecting her to further investigations such as serum iron, total iron binding capacity, or a haemoglobin electrophoresis if thalassemia was suspected. I had no idea she was not given any supplements during the early phase of her pregnancy or I would have advised her to purchase some from the pharmacy. What I felt could pass as negligence was when her relative needed blood and she volunteered to donate blood but was deem unfit as she was anaemic, yet nothing was done to investigate why was she anaemic. I’m glad during my training in paediatrics as a house officer, a paediatrician told me that if I were to observe something abnormal in a person (not even patient but a random human being in general) it is my duty as a healthcare provider to advice for further checkup. I still recalled it was the patient’s caretaker with jaundice that was the trigger for such teaching to take place.
Back to the story of the lady who is now at her 33rd week of pregnancy which means in about 5 weeks she is expected to give birth. She was only given supplements at 6th month of gestation and investigated for suspected thalassemia. What was peculiar to me is that she was not investigated for iron deficiency concomitantly. Alas her haemoglobin electrophoresis revealed that she has beta thalassemia minor and the doctor proceed to investigate for iron deficiency. I find the management to be delayed and sequence to be odd, and what I felt was unnecessary was offering her a blood transfusion at 33 weeks when she has no anaemic symptoms and her baseline haemoglobin have raised by 1 gram due to consuming iron rich food/ supplements and avoiding iron chelators such as tea. Since I am not an obstetrician, I consulted a colleague regarding the need for blood transfusion and my colleague do not think it is necessary right now as there is no plans for delivery nor does she have any symptoms of anaemia and her haemoglobin is close to 9g/dL with a background of thalassemia minor. I suspect part of the reason for her to get a transfusion is because it could help the clinic obtain additional income as she will need to pay for the transfusion. I know it’s bad to slander others but I have low tolerance towards unnecessary treatments. She went to a private clinic instead of a government clinic as it was nearer and she thought the service would be better as she is paying more for the service.
I think a lot of people both in my own country and other countries often believe that the service at public hospitals or clinics are inferior but I think it is quite unfair to say so. Definitely the waiting time is much shorter at a private facility however in terms of service I think it all depends on the healthcare personnel. There will always be bad healthcare personnel both in the public and private sector and likewise there is always good healthcare personnel at the public and private sector. Another relative narrated a horror story to me whereby a cardiologist told him that there are places where patients are given fake angiogram reports stating they have blocked vessels when in reality they do not have blocked vessels in order to subject them to insert stents into the “blocked” vessel which cost around 30k. This is clear cut unscrupulous and scary. If we cannot trust our healthcare providers, who can we go to when we are sick? I often hear a joke about heaven and hell where hell’s population is made up mostly by lawyers and doctors, I did not understand it back then but now looking at some scenarios I understand the reason. I personally think that healthcare personnel who hurt another human being during their most vulnerable and trusting state are worst than criminals. There is actually a Cantonese saying that says “take your life while you are ill” （趁你病，摞你命 Can3 Nei5 Bing6, Lo2 Nei5 Meng6). Sometimes I wonder why would someone choose to work in healthcare if they are not interested in providing the best care? Since it is a time consuming, modestly paid career, why would anyone choose to do this job if there’s no passion at all?
Gosh, I do feel a surge of anger thinking about healthcare workers who are villains and it really tarnish the reputation of the fraternity. My Muslim superior told me that in their religion being a doctor is a very noble thing and he quoted something from the scriptures which I could not recall but the bottom line is it is really noble. Alright I should stop being angry, the last two days I woke up feeling angry and on both occasions it was because of a silly dream. The first dream was because my bouquet of flowers were deliberately destroyed by my brother which was a very weird dream but I was so annoyed and another dream was due to a unjust time table by my schedule maker where I am stationed at two places consecutively for 3 days and the schedule did not make any sense. I’m not sure why am I having these dreams as nothing I did in the day or any of my thoughts could relate to those dreams.
If the strawberry moon could grant me a wish, I wish that the lady could have a safe natural delivery without much medical interventions such as a caesarean section or blood transfusions.
Go away clouds, let me enjoy the strawberry moon a little bit more for the night.
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