DIAGNOSIS – ECONOMIC CRISIS; CAUSE - UNKNOWN
24 June 2022
Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
[“Last Sunday, when a new mother
began suffering dangerous bleeding at a major Colombo hospital, an urgent call
went out to one of its main consultant anaesthetists.
The
mother needed to be rushed to surgery but the specialist was three kilometres
away, stuck in an hours-long line at a petrol station without enough fuel to
drive to the hospital.
Fortunately,
the anaesthetist was eventually was able to get there, as a vehicle from the
hospital was sent to pick her up. The mother was able to go into emergency
surgery and after further treatment in the intensive-care unit, she is now
recovering.]
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/with-sri-lanka-in-freefall-this-is-what-a-collapsed-economy-looks-like-20220623-p5aw1c.html
The
above was about Sri Lanka , interpreted by an Australian. The parallel of it
happened to me here in Australia. I shared it as follows with the chairman of
our body corporate:
[Yesterday, you saw being wheeled out
by Ambulance staff. Below is an account of it as shared with a group of
doctors:
“Yesterday, after my writing
work and in the middle of cooking dinner for the family, I felt chest-pain.
Then I started sweating. Then I felt nauseous. I submitted to the Lord
first. Then I sought to call the ambulance but kept dialling 999 instead of
000. Both Param and our granddaughter who lives with us during her Uni studies
– were at work. I thought of my lawyer friend Viji’s father who called the
ambulance from a telephone booth – when he developed chest-pain. Then I felt I
also could do likewise. I left the front door of my unit open and then lay down
on the sofa. I heard the Ambulance. I had already given directions to ask the
office to let them in. It so happened that Param came at the same time the
Ambulance staff were asking about unit 906. I was taken to Prince of Wales
hospital.”
If I had been alone on the weekend or
after office hours, I would not have directed the Ambulance staff to the
office. This, as you know, happened when your then neighbour was trying to open
our door – thinking it was his. Then I raised the issue of us not being able to
get the Police up – without risking injury to ourselves. You fitted a camera on
the floor but did not resolve the problem. Yesterday’s incident is much more
serious – as it is a matter of life and death. One of the doctors in our group
said that in the case of one of their colleagues – they personally took the
patient to the hospital, as the ambulance was getting late.
As advised previously, our son said
that given the new lifts – it would be appropriate to facilitate our guests to
come to our floor. Pradeep said that the wiring would need to be changed but
that this would be easier done now when the new lifts are being installed. Relative
to that – Roof Garden and other comforts seem to be a luxury.
I am informing you because you are
the chairman of the community. If I fail to hear from you positively, I propose
to take the issue up with the Council. This may lead to other similar structures
getting a new, improved system.
In the Ambulance and at the hospital,
I was asked to state the level of my pain on a scale of 1 to 10 – where 10 was strongest
pain. In both instances I said that to me it was the worst I had experienced.
Hence it was 10. Hence I called the Ambulance.
Then a medically certified Australian Tamil wrote :
Gaja,
I am sorry but not surprised of what happened to you. I am your scape goat to
put all the blame on me. From a mile I can assure you that all what you
had was a hysterical or a panic attack due to anxiety. I can put my bottom
dollar and say you had similar episodes in the past too. Now coming to
ambulance and hospital, with your complaints they have to take you in and it is
very basic, their believing you is besides the point. And soon with routine initial
examination they would have understood your problem and not an acute cardiac
issue at all. The rest is just reassurance, sympathy and empathy. By the
way in hospital they don’t treat anyone as a princess and instead as a patient.
]
A New Zealand Tamil wrote to the Australian
doctor:
[One thing I want to point out to you is
that it is unwise to diagnose or pre-empt a patient's sickness without
checking. One incident took place a week ago when 20 of our friends went out
for dinner to a Thai restaurant. The one who sat next to me was having his food
and suddenly collapsed. I immediately called the ambulance and the person who
answered me asked whether he was breathing. I said yes. They said they will
send the ambulance. We waited for 10 minutes but the ambulance didn’t turn up.
So I called again. They said your person is breathing so the ambulance is
attending other urgent cases so it might take a bit longer. I thought this was
not good & we drove him to the hospital. Thank God we did that. He
had anaphylaxis. If we waited for the ambulance for another 20 minutes
his life would have been in real danger.
All I am saying is that we don't know the
seriousness until we check. So you being a doctor please give her some
time to recover especially you mentioned she has the sickness before
too. I personally don't know you and lady Gaja but my humble request
is that let her recover first.
Please don't give overdoses.
All I am saying is that we don't know the
seriousness until we check. So you being a doctor please give her some
time to recover especially you mentioned she has the sickness before
too. I personally don't know you and lady Gaja but my
humble request is that let her recover first.
Please don't give overdoses. ]
In Sri Lankan Tamil, the above is stated
as follows:
The pain of the boy who cries that
the kanji (rice water) is lacking in salt and the boy who cries that his milk
is lacking in sugar must be taken as the same. The two are parallels and would not
meet.
In the above case in terms of visible
status – I am the parallel of Kinji-drinking boy. The Australian certified doctor
is the parallel of Milk drinking boy. Our respective feelings cannot be measured
on the same scale of 1 to 10.
Likewise, the feelings of Sri Lankans
and Australians would not meet.
When I had the problem, I relied on
the social aspect of low ranking officials in the hospital and elevated myself
to the level of Revenue Manager that I was at South Eastern Sydney Area Health
Service where I completed my service successfully. Hence my ranking was true
and not imaginary. The hospital staff would obviously be trained in such ‘mannerism’
. Some may wear it naturally and others as duty. But the way I took it was as
per my truth.
In the case of the New Zealand Tamil –
he called me a ‘lady’ - which
meant he was a knight. This happened also with a
high-ranking Sri Lankan doctor who also disciplined the above mentioned
Australian Tamil doctor.
Sri Lanka’s economic collapse is the
diagnosis. The cause is not yet identified by Economic Doctors. In the
meantime, Sri Lankans are socially recognising each other as Royalty – thus
filling the vacancy created by the Bandaranaike dynasty and their heirs the Rajapaksa dynasty. It would therefore be counter-productive, if Australian
media treat Sri Lankans as ‘poor’. We make up for loss of money – through stronger
Human Resources.
The loss of money happened due to our
dependence on leaders who failed to trust the voters. I presented this as
follows to the group:
[More
than anything else he lacks the trust a doctor needs to have in a patient. They
say that we need to be honest with our doctor and our lawyer. In turn the
doctor or the lawyer has to trust us until s/he knows we are lying.]
In
Democracy, the voters are in the senior position. Politicians have the duty to
be honest with the voters and the voters in turn, have the duty to trust the
Politicians until they know that the politicians are lying. The group without
any official portfolio, that is currently protesting is such a self-governing
group.
When
more and more Sri Lankans become self-governing, we will learn to live within
our means by taking our earned position in global community – which gets Human Resources for money resources. Towards
this we need to believe in ourselves.
By reacting to ‘what
happened’ instead of finding out why it happened – Australians are insulting Sri
Lanka’s sovereign status. That is ‘cheap’ mentality which makes Sri Lanka a ‘Thavicha
Muyal’/ desperate rabbit that is easy to ‘catch’.
