Sunday 05 / October / 2025
In Oman, the well-to-do families would not hesitate to drive to the nearest private hospital to get the “best” attention when they get sick because they think the government’s facilities are not up to standard.
Private hospital owners hugely capitalise on this sentiment. In the consultation rooms, though at time exaggerated to make the treatment more urgent, doctors play their role of life and death with great skills.
But both opinion and consultation that send you to the hospital theater, work on your emotion so you can dig deep in your pockets. In a world of profiteering, the racket of making money can override ethics. It is not uncommon that private hospitals would recommend an operation that stands no chance of cure just to make the cash till ring instead of advising their patients to avoid the pain by staying at home to live whatever days they have left in peace.
Why? In the words of a retired medical practitioner, specialists need to justify their huge overheads for the private hospital owners by having as many patients under the surgical knife as possible. There is no room for ethics for these private hospitals. Moral principles are cut in a thousand pieces in the same way they chop up their patients’ flesh. This is not an attack to all surgeons because there are many out there with enough moral values refusing to cash in on a moment of desperation.
Usually the younger surgeons with expensive tastes but with no scruples to taint their sports cars with blood money are succumbing to such practices. The sad thing is that doctors rally around each other by covering themselves. Usually, relatives of deceased will not want to contest because it would extend their pain. Perhaps we need a stronger arm from the government to protect the vulnerable.
We also need a watchdog that will represent patients from making a claim when foul play is suspected. Many patients think that if they sign for the operation they really consent to mistakes doctors might make during the procedure. This stops many of them from making claims. It is not true. Surgeons can still be held responsible and prosecuted if they made a wrong judgment.
Here in Oman, private hospital often recruit doctors who have day jobs in the government medical institutions to cut down their costs. It is not uncommon for a doctor who had just been operating in the morning to have another one in the evening at the second hospital. The government can be accused of laxity to monitor doctors with less skill or even experience to work on cases out of their expertise in private hospitals.
There are also increasing cases where ailing patients, who were told by a government doctor that they stand no chance of recovering from a grueling operation only to be accepted by a private hospital and die. But when one reports to the Health Ministry about it, they tell you “the patient took a risk” and it ends there.
It looks like both private and government doctors are in it together to collaborate with desperate patients. It remains that these scruple doctors are walking free to profit from another victim so they can continue to live a lavish life after the death of their patients.
All of that to the expenses of vulnerable patients who have too much money but less sense. And the private hospitals love them.
