Second-class patients

Aug 28, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – There is something wonderfully modern about a health system in which the government pays a private hospital to provide a service to poor people, and the private hospital then tells those poor people to come back tomorrow for the results. It is almost as if the voucher comes with a small footnote saying: “Congratulations, you qualify for medical care, but unfortunately you do not qualify for the same speed of service as everybody else.”

A sign at a private hospital reportedly informed persons using government-issued health vouchers that they should return the following day to collect their laboratory results. The hospital was, in effect, saying that its own paying patients deserved priority, while the patients whose bills were being paid by the government could practise the ancient medical art of waiting.