I had to visit the Wellcare Medical centre last tuesday (12th October 2021), for a problem which was getting worse by the day.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long to see a doctor after I had gone through the initial process at the reception after I presented my NHIF card.
The doctor is a GP (I think), who asked to see my health issue and when I showed it to him, he 'jumped' away and was very upset telling me that what I had was very contagious and the name he gave me was something I had heard about, but did not know much else. Anyway, I was given some medicines to be applied to the site and told to even get my place fumigated!
The medicines, after more than 3 days of usage, did not make the slightest difference and the problem got even worse! Also, as soon as I got home from the clinic, I went online to find out more about the problem I was supposed to be suffering from and found that I could only have 'caught' it from another human in close contact or if I'd shared my personal stuff with another who suffered from the same problem.
Now, I live on my own and hardly get any 'chance' to be in that kind of close contact with anybody and especially during these covid times, it is better to keep as far away as possible from another person. Covid-19 has made all of us very anti-social where we don't shake hands nor hug another however close the person might be to one.
Therefore, I could not imagine how I might have contracted this stupid disease. Also, even I, as a lay person, could see that the pictures and description did not match with what I had. So, how did this doctor jump, to the conclusion that he did?
Therefore, I decided to see a dermatologist at my own cost and found out that it was a fungal and non-contagious problem which was easily dealt with whose effect I could see within 24 hours!
Therefore, my contention is that what kind of doctors are we producing? Who don't make the effort and take the time to really find out more about the patients they are treating and their problems. Because, if this doctor had taken the time and made the effort, he would have found out that considering my circumstances, it was not very likely for me to have picked up a contagious disease and then made further efforts to find out what it really was. And if he couldn't understand, then he could have referred me to a dermatologist.
So, is the reason he behaved the way he did, due to his limited knowledge and/or because NHIF has this agreement with these outpatient clinics to make sure that they are not charged a huge amount, or what? I am saying this because in the past, I've been given wrong medicines, have had to pay extra for some further treatment, etc.
What happens with people who are NHIF members who do not have access to all the info that I had to find the truth and/or don't bother following up on such laxity? Maybe, they could even die due to being wrongly diagnosed!
Can all the people concerned, please, get their act together and make sure that NHIF members really DO get quality healthcare at their accredited facilities and that the patients who go there are not just suffering from 'simple' everyday diseases and investigate properly before prescribing those medicines?!
