Health warning: we risk falling into the hands of medical mercenaries

THERE was a time when it was trendy for parents to wish for a son to be a priest. But now it seems ambitious parents want their son to become a doctor, which is seen as both a prestigious and a lucrative position.

It is as if Charlie Haughey’s view of money has permeated our whole society at the expense of that ethos of serving humanity, which inspired so many people for so long.

A deputation of politicians once asked Haughey, as finance minister, for a £500 salary increase. He surprised them by promptly agreeing to give them £1,000 a year extra because he said he would get as much grief for one as the other. Now they have all adopted this attitude.

“Do we not all know that a man’s work or value is judged by what he earns?” Haughey asked the Dáil on introducing legislation to increase judges’ salaries. “It is a human and natural thing and it is something which is very common here — to look down on a man who does not earn as much as you do. I think it applies to all levels of our society.”

“I think the complete contrary is true,” Noel Browne argued. People like the Little Sisters of the Poor or Carmelite Fathers were paid very little, but this did not mean society placed more value on the services of a brothel-keeper just because he got more money, Browne argued.

“I do not know anything about them,” Haughey sneered. “I leave them to the deputy.”

Surely it’s a small man’s syndrome to wish to look down on anybody. Haughey climbed the political ladder by introducing imaginative schemes, like free travel for the elderly. The State was already subsidising public transport and this was a way of getting something of practical value for the subsidy at no extra cost.

Others used electoral bribery without regard to the consequences. Those who never tired of warning us about Haughey were responsible for the extravagant election manifesto of 1977 which almost bankrupted the country. It led to a raft of stealth taxes and forced the cream of a generation into exile in the 1980s.

Bertie Ahern arrived in the Dáil thanks to that monumental political confidence trick in 1977.

He tried much same trick in 2002 with the medical cards for the elderly. Some critics may think this was socialised medicine, but it was not thought out. A consequence has been the handing over of Irish medicine to bureaucrats and the encouragement of medical mercenaries.

When I was growing up, an aunt and uncle lived with us for a time until they could get a house. He was a doctor at the county hospital, so I got a first-hand view of the life of a conscientious doctor.

He could be called at any hour of the night, and some nights he would get very little sleep and would then have to work a full day anyway. It was clear that a doctor had to have a kind of vocation to serve humanity, but now our system has been recklessly encouraging people into medicine for mercenary reasons.

The highest points in the Leaving

Certificate results are usually required for medicine or dentistry. Less than 5% of applicants succeed in getting into medicine.

Some of those who accept places will do so just because they have the points to get in, not because they know it is what they really want to do in life.

Some may be fulfilling the frustrated ambitions of their parents, like the guy who spent seven years in Maynooth and wasn’t ordained a fortnight when he suddenly realised it was his mother who had the vocation.

It is absurd to expect youngsters who have only lived at home to make a lifelong commitment on their future before they even go to university. In other countries it is necessary to get a primary university degree before applying to medical school.

Medicine and dentistry should really be seen as vocations rather than mercenary occupations. If people go into those professions just for the money, they are liable to be lousy, frustrated practitioners.

Doctors, especially those dealing with terminally ill patients, have a frighteningly high rate of suicide. And the suicide rate among dentists is even higher.

The most common factors for suicides are depression and alcoholism, not the victim’s profession. Being stuck in an unsuitable profession, especially one like medicine, is a recipe for depression and alcoholism. This probably explains the high rate of suicide among doctors and dentists.

Because entry requirements are based on the Leaving Certificate, in which girls tend to do better than boys, more girls are taking up positions in dentistry and medicine.

Some qualify and get married and become full-time mothers and housewives, which may have been their real ambition all along. Their education will stand to them for the rest of their lives, but at an extravagant cost to society.

A survey published by Harvard University last year found that women doctors tend to feel more stress on the job because of gender bias and an increased need to succeed in this male-dominated profession. Hence women doctors are even more likely to commit suicide than their male counterparts. In fact, the suicide rate among women doctors in United States is 2.7 times the rate among American women in general.

Over the years we have aped the Americans in developing our own criminal, drug and gang cultures. The bulk of the current Government came to power promising zero tolerance. They reneged on that promise, and gangland killings are becoming a regular feature of Irish life.

Are we going to ape the Americans in adopting their discredited health system, too?

While I was at university in Texas in the late 1960s, some friends used to work as part-time ambulance drivers. They told horrific stories about having to wait at A&E while injured patients had to prove they had medical insurance before they would be admitted to the hospital.

IRISH people would be horrified at this. Americans were too and they have outlawed the practice.

When our Government introduced free medical cards for everyone over 70 back in 2001, it was another extravagant election gimmick.

This is essentially the same crowd that promised zero tolerance. What do the people of Limerick think of that now?

Our health system is going the American way. There are interminable waiting periods at A&E departments throughout the country. The only reason queues are not longer is that many people are terrified of going into hospital for fear of catching something worse.

People with health insurance can get prompt treatment, but others must wait. Bowel cancer is the second highest cancer killer in this country; it killed 924 people in the last year for which figures are available.

If a doctor suspects a patient may have bowel cancer, the patient could have to wait for up to nine months for a colonoscopy. But those with health insurance can go to a consultant as a private patient and he can take them ahead of the queue. The whole thing is partly subsidised by the poor man who has to wait for the treatment.

Call it capitalism, or whatever. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.