The national health sector is on its knees, short of money, medicines, unable to repair vital equipment and constantly striking to get their grievances heard

There are days when you wake up from a sound sleep. Then comes a day when you are woken up by something unexpected.Last week, I woke up suddenly to find my left arm numb – feeling pins and needles as they say from the elbow down.I rarely get that sensation, and it subsides quickly if it does happen. After a few minutes, though, I realised that something was wrong – my wrist and fingers were less agile.The hand wasn’t numb. Sensation of touch was there, but it just didn’t feel functional as usual.

I have always been proud of my good health. With advancing age, this contributes hugely to my sense of well being. But the past three years have done much damage. Increasing stress, bad news from everywhere, a more harried lifestyle, loss of income and my insistence on feeding and caring for street dogs and cats despite highly reduced income, curfew, inflation, bad weather, socio-political instability – all this has taken a huge toll. I have worked myself to the point of exhaustion, with red lights blinking, with no relief in sight.

I don’t see why I should seek private consultation for serious medical issues when we have paid so much in taxes for a national health service

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I have always been proud of my good health. With advancing age, this contributes hugely to my sense of well being. But the past three years have done much damage. Increasing stress, bad news from everywhere, a more harried lifestyle, loss of income and my insistence on feeding and caring for street dogs and cats despite highly reduced income, curfew, inflation, bad weather, socio-political instability

My pressure and blood sugar levels have always been normal due to careful diet and stringent exercise. Though I hadn’t done any check up for three years, I know the symptoms of high blood sugar and, as a recent injury healed quickly, I assumed blood sugar levels to be normal.

But this was something new. Could this be a stroke? My 65th birthday is three months away. 

My facial muscles felt all right. It’s the hand which was in trouble. I decided to go back to sleep and see if that helped.

When I woke up, the hand still felt the same. I could hold a cup, but had trouble raising it up from the wrist, and the fingers felt sluggish when I washed the left hand. There was less strength in squeezing something hard.
I assumed it wasn’t a stroke, but a physiotherapy problem.

I called a doctor of my acquaintance and he insisted it could be more than that, especially when I told him I had hit the lower part of my head on the road twice a few months ago when my bicycle crashed due to pot holes and bad visibility at night.

He said I should consult a neurologist as there could be internal bleeding in the brain, followed by costly scans.
All that is fine if you have the money! In any case, even if I have the money, I don’t see why I should seek private consultation for serious medical issues when we have paid so much in taxes for a national health service.

I went to the OPD of the Colombo National Hospital. I was lucky with everything that day. With the risk of a prolonged hospital stay, I had to attend to quite a few things at home, and I got there just three minutes before closing time at noon.

A doctor told me to get admitted for a fuller examination. I was sent to Ward 49. The doctor who examined me there said the cause was probably a muscle spasm. She asked me if I kept the damaged arm tucked under my head when I slept. I have done so for years, sleeping mostly on my left side.

After questioning me carefully, she ruled out a stroke. A male ward doctor later made me do an ECG and the results were normal. But my pressure was a little high, for the first time in my life. But he said these pressure levels were the norm these days with high levels of stress. He told me to get my pressure checked regularly for a week, and seek medical help only if remained consistently high.

Only the blood sugar and cholesterol remained to be checked, and he told me to get that done privately; perhaps because government hospitals are cash-strapped and have to economise. I wasn’t unduly worried about either, but this was a new situation and both had to be checked.

I was discharged the same evening and prescribed a physiotherapy session at the same hospital the next day. I’m happy to say that the members of the hospital staff were courteous and attentive; except for one attendant. That’s praiseworthy considering the stress they have faced post-2019. The young doctor who examined me was frank about the problems they are facing in this economic crisis.

After two physiotherapy sessions (electro pulse therapy plus exercises) I felt a lot better. My pressure returned to normal and when the doctor checked my blood sugar and cholesterol reports and said ‘perfect,’ I felt like celebrating.

I simply wonder what would have happened if I ran to a private hospital. Admission for a few hours, examination and ECG would have cost over Rs. 50,000. Private hospitals fleece patients mercilessly. They would have insisted on costly brain scans that leave people in serious debt. Arundhati Roy has written eloquently on how private hospitals in India exploited desperate patients and their families during the pandemic.

All these high-charging specialists have their wards at the National Hospital. If OPD doctors feel a patient should be referred to a specialist, why can’t they be seen at the National Hospital, free of charge? More and more people are falling ill due to stress and depression, they are desperately short of money, and medicines costly. Specialist doctors work with an eye on the clock, rushing to their channelling services where they sometimes arrive an hour or more late. The national health sector is on its knees, short of money, medicines, unable to repair vital equipment and constantly striking to get their grievances heard. What kind of health care is this? I was lucky. On my second visit to the physiotherapy unit, I saw patients turned away because minor employees were on strike.

Health depends a great deal on diet, lifestyle and environmental factors. As I began writing this piece, a Google news item about the death of an American actress, star of a TV series, popped up. She was only 53. These are people who can afford the best of medicare, with money to go on vacation and shed their daily stress loads. 

I have not had a vacation in more than three years. I’m facing an inordinate amount of stress. My diet is monotonous, but it’s healthy. Pandemic lockdowns put an end to my long distance cycling, but I still commute by bicycle daily. When my daughter insisted I should take a three wheeler and she will pay for it, I went by bicycle to physiotherapy. 

This is a wake-up call for me to slow down and take better care of my health. With so much external pressure on us, it’s up to make the best of dwindling resources and try to stay healthy as long as we can.

I believe health is greater than wealth, but I still made a mistake in my sleeping habits and had to visit a hospital. We all make mistakes somewhere, whether awake or in sleep. After going through the Rajapaksa meat grinder, more and more people will have to seek help from the national health service when in trouble. If the government has no money, it should cut military spending and put some of that money into the health service, or more and more Lankans will die, not from terrorism but from trauma and stresses created by terrible politics.