By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
There is a silent epidemic in Guinea Conakry that no government press release, hospital slogan, or doctor’s oath can hide. The commercialization of human suffering has taken deep root across hospitals, clinics, and private medical centers, where many practitioners have abandoned their sacred duty to heal. Instead, they have transformed patients into paying customers, and sickness has become their most profitable industry.
| “What was once a noble calling to save lives is now a business empire driven by greed and deception.”
Walk into most clinics in Conakry today, and you will likely leave with a diagnosis of diabetes, hypertension, or some other chronic disease. It no longer matters whether your symptoms are mild or whether your illness could be resolved with simple rest or nutrition. The doctors, in their clinical arrogance and economic desperation, have mastered the art of creating patients out of healthy people. They know the fear that comes with being told one has diabetes or high blood pressure, and they use that fear as a business strategy.
Behind this is a well-oiled collusion between medical practitioners and pharmacy owners. It is an open secret that many doctors receive commissions from pharmacies for every prescription they write. The more expensive the medicine, the higher their share. So they inflate dosages, prescribe unnecessary tests, and push drugs that patients neither need nor understand. What could have been a simple medical check-up becomes a financial trap. Families, already struggling to make ends meet, are driven into debt just to satisfy these fabricated medical demands.
This system has turned healthcare in Guinea Conakry into an extortion racket. Instead of compassion, patients are met with contempt. The poor, the elderly, and even the pregnant are treated with disdain. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics alike often display arrogance and impatience, speaking down to those who come to them for help. Many citizens have now come to fear hospitals more than the diseases themselves.
| “A physician’s fundamental responsibility is to promote the health and well-being of patients.” – American Medical Association
The tragedy goes beyond financial exploitation. It extends into life and death. Too many Guineans have lost their lives to misdiagnosis and malpractice. One of my uncles went to visit his mother and ended up dead after a paramedic wrongly concluded that he lacked enough water in his body. Without proper medical supervision, he was given drips that led to his death. Another family member was misdiagnosed as having water in his lungs. The treatment cost us a fortune, but he too passed away, not because of the disease, but because of reckless treatment.
The situation is worsened by the alarming number of unqualified people parading as medical professionals. Across Guinea, one finds dispensers, assistants, and paramedics calling themselves doctors. They operate clinics, prescribe dangerous drugs, and carry out procedures they are neither licensed nor trained to perform. Innocent lives are lost because of this medical anarchy, yet the authorities remain silent.
One cannot overlook the latest medical fashion: the normalization of cesarean section deliveries. Childbirth in Guinea Conakry is now viewed as an opportunity for profit. Women are told they cannot or should not give birth naturally. Doctors encourage cesarean deliveries even when there is no medical necessity, because it costs significantly more than a natural delivery. What used to be a last resort to save lives has become a first choice to make money.
Women are left traumatized, financially drained, and physically weakened. The beauty and strength of motherhood are being hijacked by a system that sees mothers not as life-givers but as paying clients.
Then there is the cruel irony of medical advice given by these so-called professionals. I remember my aunt surrounded by pills and syrups. I asked her whether she had eaten. She said no. The doctor had told her to avoid eggs, milk, meat, bananas, and other nourishing foods, yet prescribed a cocktail of medications no one could tolerate on an empty stomach. How can a person recover from illness when denied the very nutrients the body needs to heal?
| “The good physician treats the disease, the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” – Sir William Osler
This madness has become so widespread that it now defines our national health culture. Every home in Guinea has someone battling an endless cycle of pills, syrups, injections, and fear. And so, the pharmacies thrive, the doctors smile, and the patients weaken.
If this is what happens in Conakry, where the best hospitals and most trained professionals are concentrated, one can only imagine the horrors in the interior. If the capital is drowning in greed and malpractice, how will Kissidougou, Faranah, Mamou, or Koundara cope? What about Kankan, Labé, Nzérékoré, Siguiri, Dinguiraye, Kindia, Boffa, Gaoual, Mali, and Télimélé? In these remote regions, medical equipment is scarce, trained professionals are few, and regulation is nonexistent. Villagers depend on unqualified nurses and traditional healers who mix superstition with counterfeit drugs. For them, a wrong injection or a false diagnosis is often a death sentence.
| “If Conakry is suffering, then the interior is silently dying.”
If the government does not act now, Guinea risks turning its rural communities into graveyards of preventable deaths. Health is the foundation of development, and when it collapses, the nation collapses with it.
As the ancient medical oath reminds every practitioner, “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.” Those words, from the Hippocratic Oath, are a moral compass and a lifelong commitment every doctor should live by. The great physician Maimonides also prayed, “May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.”
Yet in Guinea Conakry, many seem to have forgotten these sacred pledges. Healing has become a business, and compassion has been traded for cash.
The Ministry of Health must confront this crisis. Regulation of private clinics must become stricter. Medical licenses should be verified and enforced. Unqualified practitioners must be removed, and those responsible for deaths through negligence should face the law. The relationship between pharmacies and doctors must be investigated, and prescription drug sales properly monitored.
There must also be a public awareness campaign. People need to know their rights as patients, to demand explanations, seek second opinions, and question suspicious diagnoses. Community health oversight groups should be established, empowering citizens to report unethical behavior without fear.
Guinea cannot build a healthy nation on the graves of its victims. Healing is a sacred duty, not a business transaction. The government must protect its people, and medical practitioners must remember their oath to heal, not to harm.
Because when healing becomes a business, death becomes the only certainty.
