Pain and Suffering in This World: Examples from a Doctor’s Desk (Part II)

Your first day of work was hard for you. You never knew that being a doctor at a local government hospital puts you under many dilemmas and forces you to see various facets of human sufferings. You imagined what it would be like if you were working at an affluent private hospitals. Your dilemmas would most probably be limited to things like “Well, this bastard thinks he is so filthy rich that he treats everyone like a sack of potatoes. I really feel like kicking his ass. Should I go ahead and do it?” But your dilemmas are different.

All your patients are poor. How about a jamu seller (jamu is Indonesian herbal drink, supposedly to bring good health) who requires three strong doses of medications for Schizophrenia? She needed it for her husband, her first son, and her second son. To use a layman’s term, they were all crazy. Her husband and first son suffered from severe Schizophrenia. Her second son suffered a moderate one. They had to be locked up at home everyday. She had to walk many kilometers a day from morning till evening, carrying her jamu basket door to door to support her family. Her husband had fits of rage at random time during the day. He sometimes yells obscenity at night. Her first son sometimes chases his brother around the house. She was afraid that her neighbors were going to kick her and her family out of the neighborhood. Her youngest daughter, who is normal, was under tremendous stress because of this. She cried everyday. And this woman had to work from morning till evening to make ends meet. You imagined how difficult life is for them and the burden that she had to shoulder.

You realized that the Askes (a government subsidized health plan to help the poor; it is very, very limited) does not cover this much medication. You certainly cannot (legally) give her the amount of medication she requires. Even if you (illegally) provided her with the right dosage, it would mean that someone else (who are likely to be poor as well), would not get their required medication. She would have to pay a certain amount (and it was a lot for someone like her) to get the medication that she needed. You told her that. “But I only have this much with me right now. I really don’t have anymore” she said as she took out a piece of Rp.1,000 bill (less than USD 15 cents). “This is all I got. I need this to go home. Please, please, doctor, I really need these medications”. You wondered if that much is even enough for her fare back home. She proceeded to tell you that if she did not get the medications, she feared that her husband and son might act up and they would get kicked out of their house. She pleaded and pleaded. If you granted her wish, you would be taking another poor person’s share of medication. What should you do?

How about another one of your patients. A coconut picker who fell from the tree and suffered nerve damages. Now he walked with a limp and was always under terrible pain due to a pinched nerve. He definitely looked like he was in a lot of pain. He needed strong doses of pain killers everyday. Again, you would like to give him what he needed, but you can’t. The government health plan does not cover that much. Again, this man pleaded and pleaded. He said he really needed the medication. He said he could not take it anymore. You could not remember the last time you say a grown man cried like a little child in front of you. He was always in pain that he could not sleep. You imagined how you would live your life if you were under constant pain everyday that you could not do much.

You thought about the pain and suffering that these people had to go through. If God is a loving one, and is also the almighty one, why would the loving and almighty being let so much suffering to happen in the world? Why can He bear to see His creation that he loved suffer like that? Since God is almighty, He can create a world without suffering. Why is life so unfair, that there are people who had to suffer their entire life, from birth to death, while there are others who lived evil lives yet seemed to enjoy great wealth and happiness? Religions teach us about suffering. That desire is the cause of suffering, or that God is all knowing and His plan (and His intention) is the best for us. But can we really be content with such evasive explanations? That our limited minds cannot understand His plan; and that the world with this much suffering is the “ideal” plan He had for us? If He intends to teach us something, surely the Almighty can devise some plans without making people suffer tremendously just to teach others a lesson or two?

Blazing Redfish

Pain and Suffering in This World: Examples from a Doctor’s Desk (Part I)

After a very long hiatus, here I am, back and kicking. Some people have been asking me about the blog – mostly due to no new entries. Well, here it is. This is a true story as it was told to me by the primary source.

Jakarta, 2004. You have just graduated from medical school. As you were driving home from the hospital (and of course, you were stuck in the traffic jam as well), you recounted the events of your first week of work. Within that week you realized just how lucky you are and everyone else you know. For however bad they think life dealt them, there are people out there who got it far worse. And you certainly encountered a lot of those people during this first week. However, there were several particular cases that week which were stuck in your mind as you were unable to shake the thoughts. At the government hospital where you worked, almost all of your patients were the economically underprivileged, or the poor – and uneducated.

You saw them as they entered the examination room during your first day. A very young couple with their first baby. About 5 months old. A classic Hydrocephalus case (a condition with fluid in the brain that causes the babies’ head to bloat – look at picture), you thought to yourself. It is a very common condition in a poor country. Despite your lack of experience, you noticed that this was a pretty severe one. “Doctor, please help, my baby is sick” the mother said to you. She looked worried. You took a look at the CAT scan result of their baby. Your heart skipped a beat. You took a second look, and it confirmed your diagnosis. You took a looked at the young couple. They looked back expectantly at you. You realized this was not an ordinary Hydrocephalus case. Mainly because you couldn’t locate the baby’s brain in the CAT scan photos. Somehow this one was so severe that essentially the baby’s brain was a liquefied mush (probably because the condition existed since the baby was in the womb), leaving only the medulla oblongata (the part of the brain that regulates vital non-voluntary bodily functions) intact.

“Will my baby be okay, doctor?” the father asked you. You could not bear to tell them what you saw. Medically speaking, the baby is alive. Since the medulla oblongata is intact, it will remain alive at least for a long time. But you also know having no brain would mean. Without the rest of the brain, can you really say that it is really alive? Sure, the baby can still eat, breathe, and poop (all involuntary reflexes). But it cannot process information. It cannot think; it cannot learn. It does not have a brain. Sure the ears can still hear sound and transmit the auditory stimuli. But without the brain to process the stimuli, can it really hear? It can’t. Without a brain, it does not have any feelings. The baby’s brain function is lower than that of the lowest of animals. Animals can still process information; they can be trained; they can feel fear. Without brain, this baby is, functionally, the same as a plant. It does not have a mind. It can only exist, without even knowing its existence.

Apparently the parents do not know this. You see in the mother’s eyes, a hope that you can cure her baby. But not even the most advanced of medical science can help. How can you tell the young couple that their baby is essentially a vegetable? How can you break the terrible news?

Can this baby be considered full and complete, as a human being? Christianity preaches that every human being is created in the image of the Creator. How about this baby? Because we are created in this image, every human being has a God-given conscience, or “natural inclinations towards the good” as the theologians like to call it. With it, every human being can tell between good and evil (even though I always argue it’s a product of cultural teachings). This baby certainly can’t do that. So was this baby created in His image? It does not even know it existed. Did God make a mistake when he created this baby in His image? Or is this baby just not a human being? Is it really alive? Does it have a full and complete soul? After all, it does not have a mind, and it does not know it even existed…Finally, how if you were this baby? How if it is your baby? Who can you blame?

To be Continued…