Woman Criticises Hospital Admission Procedures in Latvia in Social Media Post

A woman has shared her reflections on Facebook about the situation in Latvian hospital admissions departments, based on her own experience. Written while she was waiting in admissions, the post calls on the Ministry of Health to go and see for itself what happens in hospitals every day. The source article is illustrated with the acute outpatient admissions area of Daugavpils Regional Hospital, but the text does not make clear which hospital the author was in.

What the woman described

She writes that a person with acute pain lasting two weeks was told in admissions that a referral from a family doctor was required. The family doctor later wrote the referral, and the patient was seen.

She also saw a young man with a metal splinter in his eye who could barely see. At the window he was told that no specialist of that kind was available there, and he left. Meanwhile, other people arrived with referrals and sat in the queue; several older women said they would like to lie down but had to sit and wait.

Questions about the treatment of seniors

The woman asks the health minister whether people who worked all their lives and paid taxes would have agreed to such an old age. She also cites a remark allegedly heard from medical staff, “Look at your passport!”, and asks whether age means pain must be endured in silence.

Criticism aimed at the system, not at medics

The author thanks nurses, physician assistants and other staff, acknowledging their enormous workload. In her view, the issue is the system, which she calls madness. She notes she has no medical education, but says what she saw suggests something is wrong in healthcare. She ends by demanding that the system be changed now rather than at some point in the future, and states that healthcare is a basic human right.

The source does not mention any response from the Ministry of Health or from hospitals.