The big debate which was meant to be about the prevention of doctors from practising privately turned out to be… not exactly what was expected by all parties. Despite the walk-out of the unions and representatives from the medical associations, Honourable Minister Anil Gayan and the other speakers carried on with their respective speech exposing their arguments.

But here at Comité Forces Vives, we are very clear on this matter: should the Government decide to go ahead with preventing doctors employed in the public sector from practising in the private sector, it would be a disaster and very unfair to both patients and doctors.

We live in a democratic country and the essence of democracy is freedom of choice. Any patient has the right to choose a doctor of his/her choice, irrespective of whether the doctor is employed in the public sector or not. This freedom of choice creates the perfect opportunity for a patient to develop a trust and be more at ease with his/her doctor. A recurrent interaction with the same doctor has the following advantages:

1. It increases the doctor’s awareness on the patient’s medical issues and history, (b) It allows the doctor to keep tract of the patient’s health if followup is required and (c) Given that the doctor fully knows and understands the condition of his/her patient, he or she is even able to offer free medical advice to the patient over the phone whenever possible.

In such cases it allows the patient to just get medication(s) from the local pharmacy following doctor’s advice, saving the patient the time and the hassle of unnecessarily waiting to be seen by a doctor at the hospital and this in turn decreases the number of patients at the hospital.

Moreover, if the patient is willing to pay to be seen by a doctor, it’s because the patient is confident that this particular doctor is the best person to help him or her in his or her field of specialisation. Now given that many of the reputed specialist doctors are employed in the public sector, the patient will no more be allowed to benefit from their expertise, should these doctors be prevented from private practice. This will inevitably result in a lack of availability of such doctors in the private practice, leaving the patient with the only option of attending the hospital, thereby considerably increasing the number of patients (at the hospital). The more the patients, the more the waiting time, the workload for staff at different levels and the frustrations!

We also need to consider the fact that a decrease in the availability of doctors in the private sector, especially those with specialisation may potentially:

1. Cause an increase in private consultations resulting in a possible increase of consultation fees, (b) Decrease the time taken in consulting patients to allow other patients to be seen as well, (c) Bring down the health standards in the private sector due to lack of competition.

«It is not right to penalize the medical profession as a whole for the wrongdoings of a few.»

All of the above factors will heavily affect the patients who shouldn’t have to worry about all of that thereby causing more distress to them.

On the other hand, in the event that doctors have to choose between either the public or the private sector, it will eventually affect their income. We should bear in mind that many doctors are also employers in the sense that some employ secretaries, house maids or handymen for example. Should the quality of life of these doctors be on the downside, it will greatly affect those who earn a living by working with them. Those employees may eventually lose their jobs or be employed on a part time/freelance basis resulting in a decrease in their earnings!

Doctors have the noble duty of serving patients by providing them with the best possible treatment at all times and in some cases they even save peoples’ lives. It is essential we provide doctors with the right working environment and conditions to enable them to perform at their best. We do not want to create unnecessary frustrations and make things worse. At the end of the day, the patients along with their relatives are the ones who will suffer the most.

Whilst the current system has been working fine so far, we do acknowledge abuse of the system by a few. The normal course of action should be to investigate these cases and act accordingly as per the provisions of the law. It is not right to penalize the medical profession as a whole for the wrongdoings of a few and by no means is the solution to replace our local specialist doctors by those from abroad. The Government has a duty to ensure that we save the jobs of our citizens instead of considering foreign labour, especially when we already have the necessary manpower and expertise.

We sincerely hope the Ministry of Health & Quality of Life will keep in mind the few above-mentioned points while deliberating this issue. We also appeal to the understanding of the Honourable Minister Anil Gayan and we sincerely hope that doctors are allowed to continue offering their services in both the public and private sector for the benefit of the population at large.

It’s about time that what has so far been a ‘privilege’ now becomes a ‘right’.

Comité Forces Vives Lépep Avan Tou!