My religion, my belief.
It was
a blurry morning. I can barely open my eyes but my phone kept ringing forcing me
to answer. And in a busy on call night, a phone call can only mean a bad thing.
No one will disturb you 3 am in the morning only for a chat, unless someone
life is threatened.
I pick
it up, I listen, and there it goes, a patient is shouting like crazy in my
emergency department. Reluctantly, I had to go and see the patient. Could it be
acute psychosis at this hour. I keep asking myself, why at this hour?
Subsequently
I found out that a young women was brought by her family because they cannot
manage her at home. She had pressured speech, shouting and scolding everybody,
talking about all of this random things without any particular reason and she
does not seem to stop. With my eyes still blurred, I still asking myself why
they came at this hour? As I expected they bring her in because they cannot
sleep at home as the patient keep shouting and talking loudly about random
things. She does not seem to be aggressive though.
Now she
is my problem. They can go back and sleep, now I have to stay awake taking care
of this one. And there are a few more side dish, acute exacerbation of bronchial asthma,
pneumonia, high blood pressure, as usual. Some of them need admission. What
about this young women talking non stop and loudly in front of me? Shouting at
home disturbing the family versus shouting in my ward and disturbing all my
other patient. Can they come a bit earlier? Or a bit later in the morning where
everyone are awake.
Turn
out to be the symptoms has been there for three days and they choose the exact
3 am in the morning to come to my emergency department. Can I refer psychiatrist
and go back to sleep? Ask the psychiatric team to review her. That would not be
happening in district hospital like mine. I am alone and I am the only doctor
still working at this hour.
I need
a simple solution, sedate her, admit her, observe, 3-4 hours later give a call
to psychiatric team. No harm I guess. Do no harm. Now, I have to explain what I’m
going to do to the relative of the women. To my surprise, they ask me viva question
about her condition. They ask me about the pathogenesis of the disease
(something like that) and hoping that I can give them a satisfying answer at
this hour? I try my best. But their reaction was “ this doctor doesn’t look
confident, lets just bring her home then.”
What
the hell?! I almost burst. Its 3 am, I need to write all the admission and fill
up all the drug form, investigation form and there were 2 other patient waiting
for my review. I have try my best to describe about the possible of bipolar
disorder but I can’t be so sure. I need to investigate further. Now they are
judging me.
After a
heavy discussion among themselves, they decided to admit her to the ward, don’t
give to much sedation, tomorrow call the specialist hospital to bring the
medication for her.
NOW
THEY GIVING ME ORDER?
I don’t
have time to be angry at them. I need to do my work. And I need sleep before
the next day working hour started.
When I was
busy doing the admission for her, I hear one of the senior member of the
relative of this patient is giving lecture. It’s a about devil, demon and all
other stuff that can cause her problem. He describe it like he know exactly
that is what happening to her. I always have problem with traditional belief
like this. But I do not care. Let them be. Let me do my work.
In the
end, I manage to admit the poor young women to my ward. It does not end there. The
next morning, at around 9 am my colleague call me because she said that the
relative of this patient did not want her to see the patient. Now she need my
help to talk to the relatives again. Not again.
I had
to do it. This time, I really could not do anything more. The relative insist
that the patient is not sick. It was all demon and devil’s work. She does not
need medication. She need prayer and perhaps a religious person to chase the
demon out. I had to talk and talk and talk again again and again explaining
that we can help her someway with modern medicine and I will not stop them from
believing their belief but please at least try both modern and traditional
medicine. I could not persuade the relatives. They keep saying that they are
muslim and I am too a muslim doctor must understand that this is not a disease
but a devil’s play.
They
even give me ‘advice’ regarding how we should believe on all of this as a
muslim. They were judging my faith now. Perhaps doubting whether I am a true
muslim or not. And perhaps they refused my colleague to see that patient
because my colleague is a non muslim doctor.
The
last question I ask the ‘ustaz’ was why do you bring her to our hospital in the
first place if you do not want our medicine. He said, we are not doing anything
since 4 am until 8 am to the patient. They expect us to feed her and give her
IV fluid so that she will not get gastritis due to not taking any food for two
days.
It was
4 am until 8 am. 4 hours, patient has been sleeping because the sedation I gave
at 4 am till around 7 am and not they blame us for not doing anything. What
about them refusing medicine and trying to bring that patient back without us
even able to review her in the morning?
What I
am trying to say here is, I am a muslim and I am a doctor learning modern
medicine. There is none fact in my study and in any literature in medicine
saying that we must not believe in god or religion. Yes maybe there are a lot
of pioneer in medicine being atheist but you know that the father of modern
medicine himself is a muslim. Ibnu sina is a respected physician and a pioneer modern
medicine in the world.
I am
quite sad to met a muslim like this. Ashamed. Pity to my colleague who is a non
muslim trying to help a muslim patient. What we muslim do? We chase her out
because she is non muslim, refuse any modern medicine that will harm the
patient more (harming oneself is haram in islam), then judging where I stand in
my religion.
Please stop. Please educate muslim like this. I am so
ashamed if this ever happen again. And it will. For sure.
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