Pakistan is one of those developing countries which have the lowest per-capita income. The situation of sanitation is bad, food quality is poor, mosquitoes and disease-spreading insects are found everywhere and drastic environmental changes are taking place. These are the reasons that people fell the victim of diseases like malaria, cough, and common fever they are easily treated by general physicians. The fee of whom is also in the range of common people.
The specialist doctors are less in number but their fee is very high. Their fee ranges from 500 to 5,000 in a poor country like Pakistan. Unfortunately, no rule has so far been formulated to refrain these highly educated doctors from charging such exorbitant fees. The expenses or medicines after the treatment by these specialist doctors are an additional burden on the patients. It will not be out of place to mention here that if there would have been the proper system of check and balance of the healthcare sector, legislation about the medical profession might have been done vis-a-vis the general and financial attitude of these specialist doctors.
They are not only getting the income beyond the limits individually rather collectively after establishing their own clinics. In hospitals, specialist doctors are kept as just visiting doctors and their names are used for publicity. Private clinics and private laboratories use the names to attract patients and expensive treatments and tests like Xray, MRI, CT Scan, etc. are provided and maximum patients are asked to avail of these facilities. That means earning more and more money from sick patients.
Would it not be right to say that general physicians whose qualification is generally MBBS are doing a great job of dealing with most patients and with proper care by charging just 200, 300, or 500 only including medicines and consultation fee. Many of them are family doctors who have medical specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages. These doctors are generally low-key with no interest in shoddy publicity and serving humanity in the most proper way.
The question arises here that if the poor people contract long-lasting diseases like cancer, kidney failure, TB, etc then what to do? Poor find themselves compelled to go to specialist doctors and do whatever is asked i.e. do many laboratory tests, visit many times, and do Xray MRI, etc. One can imagine how a big amount of money is required to be treated by specialist doctors.
Treatment is not done once rather patient is bound to revisit again and again. General physicians, who charge less and are more easily found are very much needed, it is just that these doctors should increase their knowledge and enhance their capabilities of medical treatments so that more and more people can get to them for complete medical care.
There are certain departments in the medical profession which cannot be avoided by the patients like surgery. General physicians obviously do not have the capabilities of treating the patients if they are badly injured or need the surgery. Therefore, such patients are fully at the mercy of the surgeons if the surgeon is compassionate then the patient after the treatment will go home happy. Otherwise, the patient does go home after recovery but without even a single penny.
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