Bullying of Patients: A Sign the Health System Has Lost Empathy
A patient comes to the hospital not to ask for pity, but because they need healthcare. Therefore, when a patient complains about long waiting times, the proper response should be to understand their situation, explain the constraints, or direct criticism at the system causing the backlog. Instead, patients often become targets of anger. This is where the issue of empathy becomes critical. A healthcare worker may be working under immense pressure, but behind that reality lies a failing system.
This problem should not be framed as a war between patients of the National Health Insurance (BPJS) and healthcare workers. When facilities are limited, patients overflow, staff work under pressure, and financing mechanisms create various administrative hurdles, conflict inevitably erupts on the front lines: between patients and doctors, patients and nurses, or families and the hospital. Yet, the root of the problem lies in the limited infrastructure.
In a capitalistic health paradigm, services are positioned as commodities. Hospitals need financing to pay workers, provide facilities, purchase medicine, maintain operations, and develop services. On the other hand, the state should have the capability to guarantee the basic needs of its people. A patient should not have to wonder, “Am I rich enough to get proper care?” because health is a basic need guaranteed by the state.
However, a poor system is not the only problem. Derogatory comments towards patients also reveal an individual issue: how one views another human being when faced with differences in class, status, or economic ability. If a patient is looked down upon merely for using public health insurance, the problem goes beyond communication ethics; it is a problem of worldview.
From an Islamic perspective, a person’s character is shaped not only by professional skill but by faith and divine law. High medical knowledge should go hand in hand with piety. Skill without morals can produce intelligent professionals who have lost their humanity. Therefore, character building cannot be left solely to professional codes of ethics; it must be built upon a faith-based education where humans are aware that every action is accountable to God Almighty.
Islam has a distinct paradigm regarding health. Health is a basic societal need that the state is obliged to guarantee. The state acts as a guardian of the people’s affairs, and thus cannot allow its citizens to lose access to healthcare due to cost. In an Islamic system, healthcare financing does not treat patients as sources of profit. The state has financial mechanisms through the Baitulmal, including the management of public assets, to fund various public needs. With this paradigm, hospitals are not pushed to see patients merely as “customers” who generate income. A patient is a human being in need of help.
Empathy for patients must indeed be restored. But empathy alone is not enough to fix a broken system. A paradigm shift is needed: from health as a commodity to health as a basic need; from the state as a regulator to the state as an operator; from healthcare workers merely doing a job to individuals working with both knowledge and piety. Because when a person is sick, the last thing they need is scorn. They need help. And the state should be present to ensure that help never depends on the thickness of a citizen’s wallet.