CGH should have been more sensitive to needs of patient and family

I refer to the article “'Appropriate care' given to woman, says Changi General Hospital in response to granddaughter's allegations” (May 15) and am disappointed to read the hospital’s replies to Ms Isabella Lim’s account of the treatment her late grandmother went through at Changi General Hospital (CGH).

I am impressed by Ms Lim’s incredible restraint and composure when recounting on Facebook what would have undoubtedly been a traumatic and heart-wrenching experience.

I also note that CGH did not dispute Ms Lim’s account of what happened. Instead, it commented — through Dr Lim Si Ching, senior consultant from its Department of Geriatric Medicine — that appropriate medical care was given during the patient’s stay at CGH and there was a “communication gap”.

The replies leave me feeling cold and dismayed.

Nobody is disputing whether appropriate medical care was rendered.

The outrage that many people feel when reading Ms Lim’s account stems from the apparent lack of compassion and sensitivity shown to the patient and her family members when the grandmother was under palliative and geriatric care.

The hospital likely did not make anyone feel better by saying there was a “communication gap”, like it was merely some stakeholder engagement that should have been managed better.

Ms Lim suggested that CGH should re-evaluate their training for staff members. I agree.

Yet, there is another element that is more fundamental and core to the practice of medicine that I feel the hospital has failed to appreciate.

A patient is not a piece of meat or a file to be closed.

The essence of running a hospital is not merely to ensure that the patient is removed from the bed efficiently so that the next patient can fill it.

One sentence in the Hippocratic Oath states: “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.”

I wonder how many in the medical field can truly appreciate the essence of this line?

I urge doctors, nurses and hospital workers to ponder one basic question: Is this what you would say or do if the patient is your close family member?

I was heartened to read that the quality of care was better after the patient was moved to the National University Hospital.

Yes, moving a patient to another hospital was a decision of great risk and peril to the patient.

I hope CGH will sincerely conduct some soul-searching to appreciate why Ms Lim and her family were compelled to make that decision.