Visiting a governmental hospital in Yemen will make you feel disgusted as patients suffer badly under the current waves of mismanagement and negligence.

In a recent study by the Yemen Polling Center (YPC), most respondents pointed out that corruption is rampant in all health sectors, as the matter is even worse in rural areas.

According to respondents, health sector corruption is the norm, and finding a hospital or medical center free of corruption is an exception. 

Wherever one goes, dozens of patients are seen lining in rows waiting for their turn to be admitted to a doctor. However, the case is different with high class or influential people as they are admitted as soon as they arrive to hospitals.  

Hundreds of citizens complain that medical services offered in public hospitals and centers are not to the level. The case is not different in private hospitals whose sole end is to get money according to the respondents.

Some governmental hospitals or medical centers will not take care of a patient only if he has a relative in the hospital or is affiliated with influential people. Further, patients are required to buy everything starting with papers to write eh  prescriptions on and ending with drugs.

In this regard, the study reveals that medicines and drugs imported for public hospitals and health centers are sold in private pharmacies and hospitals. In the case when the medicine finds its way to patients, it are always given to rich and influential people. 

Further, health sector suffers from the lack of specialists and technical cadre and more people speak of diagnosis errors. Um Ibrahim was diagnosed with a mass in her liver and she was told that she will die unless she urgently gets operated. However, she visited another hospital and was told that she had nothing wrong with her liver, confirming that her case demands only simple medicine for a certain period of time.

Medical centers of rural areas

According to the same study, majority of respondents agreed that medical services provided to locals in rural areas are bad as these medical centers are neither appropriately equipped nor have a competent medical staff.

Though they accommodate over 70 percent of Yemen's population, rural areas badly suffer from the lack of basic services, especially health services. In some areas, the medical centers exist, as buildings. 

Under such conditions, patients of rural areas are forced to visit hospitals in cities as this adds more burdens to these hospitals, especially when rural medical centers could not provide the primary health or first aid services.

“Patients are never taken to hospitals when getting sick. If their condition becomes worse; their families may take them,” asserted a 31-year-old and father of four Ali Saleh Ahmed

Due to the errors of diagnosis, the loss of trust in Yemeni doctors and the widespread ignorance lead people from cities and rural areas alike to go from one doctor to another seeking a better diagnosis. 

Sometimes, locals are required to go to cities for  first aid or a simple medical assistance because these centers have no medicine.

Feeling unable to bear the costs for visiting a public hospital in cities, most locals seek help from the traditional healers or seek other traditional alternatives.

The study also assured that most rural area medical centers have no specialists, enough midwives and nurses. Very often, general practitioners exist in such centers, mostly fresh graduates. They leave these centers to cities as soon as they become public servants.

Meanwhile, there is no control over the performance of medical centers in rural areas and this leads to more corruption practices, particularly when managers, who are secondary school graduates, are granted absolute authority over budget spending.     

Public hospitals

Medical services in governmental hospitals are below the needed level, as these hospitals lack a qualified staff as well as the up-to-date medical equipments.

"Governmental hospitals are not ready to receive patients with serious problems and their equipments don't meet the minimum standards," noted 30-year-old patient Omer Mohamed Najee who suffers from stomach ulcer. "Staffs in governmental hospitals don't respect rules and regulations which are set for the public safety.

YPC study shows that most doctors do not commit themselves to work hours, especially when they come late. The case is worse in rural areas where nurses or doctors could remain absent for weeks.

Most doctors have more than one job at the same time and this makes them lose concentration in their work according to the study.  In addition to work in public hospitals, they work in private hospitals and clinics in an effort to make as much money as they can.

When asking numerous patients in governmental hospitals throughout Sana’a if they receive any sort of free support from hospitals, they answered sadly by saying that a person cannot receive a dose of aspirin or piece of a bandage from governmental hospitals for free.

"I can't forget the painful night when I took my wife to a hospital and doctors refused to open the clinic door, saying it is not their business to work at the middle of the night" lamented 35-year-old Faisal Abdullah Saleh "I wish concerned officials can hear what i have to say" he added.

Aspects of corruption in health sector

Most respondents agreed that corruption is widespread in the health sector and stressed the importance of combating it, especially when health is an important component of basic services.

They further believe that bribery is so common and this has made people get the feelings that they cannot get good medical services only with paying bribes. The matter mostly involves nurses, cleaning workers or assistant doctors.

Some patients are discriminated against, especially when they belong to poor families as influential and rich people have priority over others. They do not wait even for a single minute as they have relatives or middlemen who help them get everything ready within no time.

Accountant Abdul Elah Naji, 42, points out that poor people are the victims and they suffer greatly under the current trends of corruption in health sector and other state institutions.

Several months ago, patients with kidney failure and other chronic diseases staged different sit-in’s before the cabinet building demanding the Ministry of Health to buy them genuine medicines and drugs.

However, given the regular contact between the patients and nurses, nurses in Yemen do not do much to ease the pain of the patient, as they feel that their duty is to give them medication, rather than to be a friend to whom patients can complain and talk to.

“When I was in the hospital, the nurses and doctors treated me as a patient only. They did not talk to me in a pleasant manner. That made me more scared,” complained 43-year-old Saleh Obad Sa'ad who suffered from a blood clot.

In order to get over such problems, respondents demanded authorities to raise the salaries of medical employees in order for them to provide better services to citizens. 

They also asked for privatization of health sector where private sector can take charge of it, hinting this will upgrade the level of health services provided to citizens.