Politics and medicine: Good from far, but far from good

 

From Dr Venugopal Balchand

This is a true story. The year: 2007. The month: October. The holy month of Ramadan.

Tee Hui Yi was a petite, pretty teenager. So full of life yet so perilously close to death. She had been on a mechanical heart for close to a year. Only a heart transplant would allow her to see her 20th birthday. Hopes were fading though.

But Hui Yi was not about to give up. Miraculously, on Thursday, Oct 4, 2007, she got that call. There was a donor. Instantly, the transplant team swung into action. The surgeons were mostly Malay. All of them had been fasting but there was no time for a proper buka puasa. One of the anesthetic doctors was an Indian. I was not part of the surgical team but, like many others, was a passionate observer wishing everybody well, and willing to lend a hand if the need arose.

I distinctly remember thinking to myself that this was the best of what Malaysia had to offer. A few dedicated and skillful Malay heart surgeons with an Indian doctor in the anesthetic team doing a delicate heart transplant on a Chinese patient at an unholy hour during the holy month of Ramadan. A script written from the heavens.

The first operation, unfortunately, did not go well. Hui Yi’s body rejected the organ. Blood pressures were low despite maximum pharmacological support. Bleeding was also an issue. But in a one-in-10 million kind of incident, she received another heart within 24 hours of the first operation. The same team, exhausted from all the effort of the previous day, took up the challenge again. Nearly 10 hours later, there was the first sign of a smile on the face of the lead surgeon. Hui Yi would live!

There were scenes of uninhibited joy in the doctors’ lounge at the end of the operation. Hugs and high fives everywhere. A young woman had been given the chance of a near normal life after an unbelievable 48 hours of skill and perseverance.

Hari Raya that year was on Oct 13, eight days after Hui Yi’s date with destiny. I was on call that day. She had already been disconnected from the breathing machine and was progressing remarkably well. It was a special Raya lunch in the ICU indeed. Besides the usual Raya delicacies, our Chinese nurses had cooked some of Hui Yi’s favourites. And I brought vadais, puttu mayam and chicken curry to the table. It was a simple, honest celebration of life. No religion. No race. No politics.

This is my 24th year as a consultant. At a conservative estimate, surgical and clinic patients included, I would have impacted around 10,000 Malaysian lives, by God’s grace, 98% of them positively. Of course, I have lost my fair share of battles but certainly not for lack of effort or some clandestine communal ideology.

The entire Malaysian medical fraternity will agree with me that every time a doctor sees a patient, the LAST thing on his or her mind is race and religion. 70% of my surgical patients pray to a God different in name from mine. In about 30% of my patients, the only word in their language that I understand is xie xie. And yet, whether the patient on the operating table is Ahmad, Ah Chong or Anand, before every surgery, I say a prayer to my own Ganesha, the remover of all obstacles, for a successful operation. Not once has He asked me why I am helping someone of a different race or religion.

I say all this because I am disturbed and sad that in the past few weeks, there has been a deliberate attempt to politicise this noble profession of medicine. Whether it is resuscitating patients on the floor or forgoing a well-deserved overseas holiday, the only people who have put their heart and soul into this pandemic and worked tirelessly for 18 months without a break, and not from home mind you, are the members of the medical fraternity – nurses, allied medical personnel and doctors.

The very least the nation can do is to treat them fairly. For our junior doctors, please look at their credentials objectively. Provide them reasonable job security. Allow them to progress both academically and clinically. Every single day in this country, patients of one race or religion are treated by doctors of a different race and religion. To change that equation would be catastrophic.

Tee Hui Yi died on Sept 19, a few days short of the 5th anniversary of her heart transplant. This article is dedicated to her memory and to the other millions of sick individuals who bravely face disease. They teach us lesser mortals that medicine transcends race. It transcends religion. It transcends politics.

To a very small minority of ignorant, uninitiated individuals, bringing politics into medicine may look good from afar. But, believe me, it is far from good. And they need to be educated.

As our nation lurches aimlessly from one crisis to the next, flags of all colours are coming up. White, black, red. But, strangely, nobody is mentioning our national flag. I sincerely believe that the only flag we should be proudly flying is our Jalur Gemilang. As one nation. One people. Or has she also given up on us? - FMT

Dr Venugopal Balchan is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.