Sunday Surkhi

Local newspaper carries a lot of information about how poorly the mental hospitals of this state are functioning and it makes for a sad news tearing our hearts.
Firstly the funding is poor and therefore staffing is inadequate
Secondly, the staff carry a poor morale with no exciting incentive to work
Third, There are problems of how the nursing or medical staff develope a sympathetic or empathetic attitude. These are very difficult patients and all of them do not necessarily invoke a feeling of "poor-thing-needs-to-feel-better" that one is driven to compassion for the ailing person. Nature of illness is different.
Repeated admissions work, sort of, against the poor patient (there he is, in again,!! must not have been taking pills as advised!!!)
And of course there are a host of other factors that result in poorer care of these patients, but the organisation and administration needs to learn from these complaints to make serious attempts at such radical changes that will make the life of the patient and his/her family better. The whole society suffers. The system needs a complete overhaul. The approach, the in patient vs. the outpatient and proper supervision of medications + increased medical specialist's involvement and supervision are some cost-effective ways of improving the situation. The older concept of "asylum" for the mentally impaired still lingers on.
Another "surkhi" is that of patients with ESRD (endstage renal disease) who are on dialysis and waiting for transplantation, as sson as a kidney becomes availble.
One good news, that number of transplants have increased (in USA) but still 'shortage' exists.
I feel that a more robust campaign for people to offer kidney donation (after death) is needed.
I have urged Muslims to take special interest in Kidney donations. Such donation itself is not haraam and infact encouraged by Islamic teachings as reward is like a "sadaqa" for the donor.