The Ombudsman and the surgeon

The service being afforded at the Mater Dei Hospital is of such a high order that the demand for it is exceeding the supply to such an extent that operations have to be postponed because of shortage of beds, functioning operating theatres and ancillary staff.

Patients are bound to feel disgruntled but it would be rank, churlish ingratitude to make scapegoats of the surgeons. The situation is only aggravated when an ombudsman throws a spanner into the works by exerting pressure on an orthopaedic surgeon to give priority to a foreign prison inmate by skipping over some 400 law-abiding local taxpayers who, in the surgeon's opinion, have prior rights.

Stripped of political red herrings, the question simplifies itself into a decision as to who could reasonably supplant the medical expert in charge of the case to assign priorities in a list for non-emergency, cold, operations.

No sane layman could be so presumptuous as to claim precedence over the doctor in charge who would have actually examined all his patients and who would be in a unique position to effect the necessary adaptations, from time to time, as dictated by any changes in the gravity of the patients' condition.

It is not to be wondered at that so far it has not been found possible to devise a fixed set of criteria for use by rote by DIY amateurs without medical credentials. Regarding "Quis custodet ipsos custodes" nothing could possibly replace a Medical Board of professionally qualified, medically versed personnel.

From the information available in the newspaper, one can surmise that an orthopaedic surgeon in charge of the case felt aggrieved that an Ombudsman, without any medical qualifications, exerted undue pressure on him to favour one particular detainee and to discriminate against about 400 other patients also on the waiting list when the Ombudsman was not even remotely acquainted with their respective needs.

Could there be any professional person who wouldn't protest reasonably against such intrusion?