by Raj JUGERNAUTH

The medical profession should be proud to have a prime minister, who is also an MD. So said a very old doctor last week to a hall packed with select guests and the prime minister, Dr Navin Ramgoolam. We cannot yet say if the medical profession is proud of having a PM cum MD. But the country is surely not proud of that MD. Not yet perhaps. It might come, but time is running out.

In fact, we should credit Navin Ramgoolam for the effort he is making to revamp the whole diabetes campaign in terms of prevention and cure. He personally talked to the Indian prime minister, Manmohunsingh, to bring Apollo Hospitals to Mauritius. He has been hunting for top quality medical professors to help Mauritian doctors upgrade their knowledge and skills.

The prime minister has armed his office with medical advisers and we often get the impression that the PMO is a mini ministry of Health. But then, the public at large has not yet tasted the fruits of what is being prepared by the PMO. Perhaps they never will.

The PMO and its medical advisers would better look closely at some aspect of public health management in Mauritius. They might have a greater authority than the ministry of Health to redress the situation.

It would be interesting if these people could ask for a report from each hospital pertaining to how the day-to-day business has been handled during the cyclone. They could ask the director and the administrator of Victoria hospitals about their whereabouts during Gamede. These gentlemen could be asked to explain why bedsheets and pillowcases were not changed for days at that hospital. Why patients were fed on dry bread and boiled eggs for days?

Is the PM not shocked at the fact that some doctors, registered by the Medical council and most probably already hired by the ministry of Health, do not hold any HSC, but only a SC without any science subject?

The Medical Council had the power to hold exams for this special breed of ?dokter nipat? who usually study and graduate in Eastern countries. The Council has been deprived of the power to cross-examine by a man named Ashock Jugnauth. It is still a toothless bulldog two and a half years after the election of a PM cum MD at the helm of the country.

Malicious and disgusting rumours propagated by a mad MD on the competence and devotion of Professor Kalangos have kept this paediatric cardiac surgeon away from our shores.

Despite the presence of a Chairman and a newly created post of executive director at the Cardiac Unit, this department has failed to convince the professor to return to that centre where he used to operate for free.

Political nominees at that centre are not delivering the goods. Why pay Rs 50 000 monthly to a political nominee for whom a post has been created when the centre cannot pay for an active stent costing around Rs 70 000 to patients who normally should be fitted with this type of stent.

Active stents are a must for the clogged arteries of Mauritians because of the small diameters of their arteries and the fact that hypertension and diabetes are scourges in that country.

Navin Ramgoolam, as an MD, should know this. He should know that the use of bare stent is a waste of resources and money for re-stenosis would be high with these bare stents in the arteries of Mauritian patients.

The list of mismanagements in the health sector is very long, too long to be treated here. But after reading whatever has been short-listed here, I cannot say that I am proud to have an MD as Prime minister. Not yet perhaps. But I have serious doubts about what can be achieved in two and a half years.