Dear doctors, please touch us again

A doctor’s hand on a patient’s shoulder, their stethoscope on a chest, their palm pressed gently to the abdomen, these are moments that build trust, belonging and loyalty. Patients return not simply because of accurate diagnoses or follow- up reminders, but because they felt cared for…

Belinda Agnes Namutebi

Service delivery

A visit to Dr Marvel Kisaalu, whose clinic once stood on South Street, what we now call Ben Kiwanu Aka Street, still comes to mind. He would call you by name and gently usher you into the treatment room,

With an undaltering presence, he asked what was troubling you. As you spoke, he would respond with soft “namhmmsto show he was listening, often pausing to ask follow-up questions. Then his hands would take over where words left off rest ing on your forehead to feel your tempen ture, pressing gently under your neck, pull-ing back your eyelids to see what lay be neath. He would ask you to say”aaaah as he examined your throat, place his stethoscope against your chest and back, and press your stomach as though he was listening not on ly with his fingers, but also with his eyes and his heart all at once.

Even when the thermometer came along, there was still touch a nurse carefully slip-ping it under your arm, staying present with you in that moment.

Today, the visit feels different. You enter the room, and the doctor is often facing a screen, typing as you speak Questions are asked, notes are recorded, but the connec tion is thin. At triage, your temperature is taken with a gun pointed at your forehead.

Your blood pressure is captured witha band tightening on your arm. You are sent to the lab for blood and urine. When the results come back, the doctor reads them from the computer gives you a diagno sis, and sends you on to the pharmacy of ten without ever having laid a hand on you, even though there’s an examination bed in his room. The patient has been reduced to a statistic, and a pathway has been developed to calculate their customer timeline-how much revenue the business will

make from then over the course of their care. Technol ogy is even used to do follow-ups and send messages about the just-concluded visit All

this means well, but where is the cannes tion?

This is the paradox of modern healthcar As healthcare is increasingly commodified facilities are expanding to the outains of the city bringing services closer to where people live. Access has improved, but expe sion is driven by business. And business survive, must make sense of numbers, pa tient counts, retention rates projected time value Vet no business can sustain thelf on metrics alone. For a healthcare beund build and sustain its emotional value doe tors must preserve what technology ca never replicate -the human connertion that comes from being fully present and seeing what machines.cannot capture

Touch is a gesture of compassion as m as it is a brand asset. A doctor’s hand on a patient’s shoulder, their stethoscope oта chest, their palm pressed geritly to the ab domen, these are moments that build that, belonging and loyalty Patients return.not simply because of accurate diagnoses of follow up reminders, but because they felt cared for, because they experienced heang beyond the prescription. That is how fac ities will sustain overheads, pay dividends to shareholders, and justify the expansion that brought them closer to the people in the first place

This is not an attack on doctors but a re minder of the healing power in their hands Healing is more than treatment it is touch

Ms Belinda Agnes Namutebi is a communications professional pivoting in public health.