Listen to patients

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4274370/Widower-tells-docs-who-missed-wifes-cancer-Listen-to-patients.html

April, 23rd 2012

Summary

The pains began three years ago. At the hospital the doctors said it was nothing to worry about. At another hospital, where Carol asked for a scan, the doctors told her that she didn't qualify for one. Carol was fighting to be heard, but the doctors wouldn't listen. She thought she might have cancer. (She was a medical receptionist). Eventually she got a scan, after keeling over in agony. She was diagnosed with cancer and was given chemotherapy. In spite of the chemo, the cancer spread and she died of liver failure.

Opinion

This article from The Sun got a lot of reactions. Without exception, people are on the side of the patient and in their reactions they give lots of other examples in which doctors didn't listen. I don't believe, as some people say, that doctors send you away with some pills and a wrong diagnose, just to cut costs on scans or more research, or even worse; because doctors are indifferent. I think the problem is more complex; every situation of every patient is different, the doctors don't know all the facts to give the right diagnose, knowledge about diseases is not everywhere available in the same amount, hospitals do not work together; are sometimes even competitors. And there is no transparency in the agreements the insurance companies have with the hospitals and the doctors. With the patient as the loser in this battle.