THOSE foreign press stories are something, aren't they? Just when you think they can't get any more bizarre, along comes another that just takes the cake. Take this gem AFP reported last week, for instance. Somewhere in Beijing, there is a man wandering around without an essential part of his anatomy.

Dou Xueliang, a resident of a province of northeast China, is missing a penis. It seems that the loss is the unfortunate result of a hospital mishap in 1987 when doctors mistook Dou's admission to the hospital for treatment of a penis infection for a cancer and incorrectly performed a procedure on him, severing the organ.

The casualness sensed in the attitude of the Chinese media concerning this case was somewhat off-putting: somebody's penis was mistakenly cut off. Big whoop. Physician error was responsible, they cavalierly reported, resulting in the loss of most of the penis, "causing him to lose his sexual functions".

Well, yes. That would tend to happen when a doctor performs an unnecessary amputation of an organ just south of the equator.
(Incidentally, Dou's nine-year court battle, now finally resolved, has seen him winning a little over 500,000 yuan, which works out roughly at an insulting US$62,000. A piddling fraction, presumably, of its real value. Talk about your cruel Freudian slips. That's a fine howdy-do for the loss of "sexual functions", isn't it?)

Where was the righteous indignation, the public outrage? Oh sure, China could practically issue a call to arms (or at least a strongly-worded letter) to the Vatican in staunch defence of their state-sponsored Church ordaining two Chinese bishops without papal consent. But poor Dou, what did he get? The short end of the stick, so to speak. It's no laughing matter.

Still, the Chinese laissez-faire should perhaps not be surprising for a people who have experienced more than their fair share of atrocities long before the time of both Sino-Japanese wars, Chairman Mao and even Tiananmen Square, and has had to live with the memories seared into its collective consciousness. In relation to the brutalities to which the Chinese people, over the course of history, have been subjected, a severed member is probably not an issue that far up on the totem pole of concerns.

Shouldn't a major concern for any people, though - severed penises aside - be this question: Are we adequately protected by our health officials?

Don't we have the right to demand that we be? Rabid network morning-show junkies like me realise there is an increased reporting of the incidence of medical malpractice suits stemming from physician and hospital error in the United States. Shockingly, even in instances of 'routine' cosmetic surgery (read from simple chin and tummy tucks to breast augmentation).

Disturbing statistics on the website Medical Malpractice.com show that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die in hospitals in America each year due to preventable medical mistakes, according to the Institute of Medicine.

While such statistics can by no means be representative of what occurs in Jamaica, a recent report appearing in our local media must nevertheless give one pause. The following headline appeared on page five of the Sunday Observers' May 7, 2006 issue: 'A Majority 1,500 Doctors Practising Illegally in Jamaica'. (The irony could not be missed that it was strategically positioned on the flip side of the obeah story, intrepid editors!)

Anyway. Six out of every 10 doctors are unlicensed and practising illegally. In real terms, what this means is: of the 2,673 doctors whose names appear on the medical register - for the first four months of the year - only 1,096 have paid up renewal fees and done the required mandatory hours of continuing education stipulated by law.

(It can't be about the registration cost, since most doctors probably make that fee, which ranges from between $1,200 to $,3600, by simply opening the door to their practices. So we have to assume the problem has to do with not completing the mandatory hours of upgrading themselves.)

Forget the legal ramifications, what was even more frightening, and infinitely more upsetting, was the inference that the Medical Council of Jamaica was apparently leaning towards protecting the delinquents' privacy by opting to publish their names in the Jamaica Gazette - whatever that is - instead of in the mainstream papers with wider readership.
Well, then.

Do we have a medical organisation with an obligation to protect us, John and Jane Public, or what? I mean, really. None of the delinquent doctors have been struck off the list, or sanctioned in any way, so we have to assume that we don't.

No help from the Medical Association of Jamaica seems forthcoming either, even though they are "concerned" about the situation. All I can say is thanks, Dr Alverston Bailey, the MAJ's president, for being so frighteningly transparent in your response when you said, "Honestly, sometimes the doctors are so busy that they forget to renew their certificate."

And, even though the kamikaze, plain-speaking Dr Bailey may be tempted to contemplate perhaps employing the services of one of his delinquent colleagues to help surgically extract his foot from his mouth, one thing has been made patently clear.

The public's need for comforting little chimeras such as proper certification of our medical practitioners is just that: silly little chimeras. The lesson to be learned is this: Busy schedules can excuse just about anything; they can trump obligations, great and small.

Gee, I wish I'd known that last November, when I was really, really busy and forgot to renew my driver's licence and that policeman pulled me over, one night, to hassle me on the side of the road.

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