H

(Our dinner discussion continued.)

"I suppose F would have died with more dignity should he be treated in Hong Kong," Vivian sighed.

"Like his friend H ?" I chuckled. H is another billionaire who had a stroke recently.

"Yes ... no," my wife saw my catch, "Well, to say the least, he survived the stroke. But I could hardly say his treatment was satisfactory !"

"No," I agreed, "That's the typical problem of having too much money. For any trivial problem of any part of his body, his family would call for a - sometimes more than one - super-specialist of that area to offer and opinion. When there are nine or ten doctors seeing a patient, everyone just focus on their own field, and no one would make a decision !"

"Who would ?" Vivian continued, "If you make a wrong decision, everyone would blame you because they all share the responsibility. If you make a correct one, everyone would envy you - and you would probably loss all your friends and source of case referral !"

I nodded. The sobering truth is, except the last sentence, her comment also applies to many cases we see in a public hospital.