Dear Editor,
We have a major weight bias issue in our health care system all through Guyana. This issue causes misdiagnosis or prolonged diagnosis in patients and because of the lengthy referral system of our public hospitals, ‘prolonged’, is an understatement. Many times a person can explain symptoms and is still hurried out of the doctor’s office without proper evaluation/investigation, feeling completely unheard with no diagnosis and advice of weight loss.
I, myself, have been in a doctor’s office with unbearable headaches on my right side, around my eye and behind my head and was asked if I’ve been exercising. Frustration stepped in at this point because when does one get time to exercise with unbearable headaches? Panadols every 8 hrs was my prescribed treatment and though it did get rid of the pain, I don’t know why I got that pain to begin with or if/when it will return. I left every doctor’s visit feeling unheard and not properly evaluated because I was overweight.
A lot of overweight persons tend to avoid going to the hospital in general because of the way overweight patients are mishandled. The system also needs something changed as you have to visit your closest health center, then you might get a referral if it is out of the hands of the health center (most times it’s after you’ve visited the health center a few times with the same complaints), then you take your referral to GPHC where you are still not going to see a doctor but only to get a date, a month or more away.
All this to say I hope doctors can be more considerate when dealing with an overweight patient and do more thorough investigations and evaluations to help their patients and to save people from prolonged diagnosis and I hope we can make some changes in the system as to the time it takes to get to actually see a doctor when referred.
Sincerely,
Jellisa Smith
