I felt somewhat shocked by Ahmad Sobri's letter entitled But doctors are businessmen too...

Allow me to reproduce a short quotation from a very relevant dialogue which I recommend to all:

"What does the physician do, in the strict sense you articulated just now? Does he heal the sick, or does he make money? And remember, I am now speaking of the true physician.

"He heals the sick, he replied.

[...]

"Once he had agreed I continued, saying: Then no physician either, insofar as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes; he considers rather what is good for the patient. For you agreed that the physician in the strict sense is a ruler having the human body as his subject; he is not a mere money-maker. You granted this much?"

(Plato, The Republic, Book 1 )

Plato makes the point that medical care is a basic human requirement and most of us require it in order to maintain a basic quality of life, some more so than others. Doctors are not businessmen and nor should personal gain and fortune come before giving the very best of care to all those who require it. The same is reinforced by no other than Hippocrates, the father of medicine who wrote:

"Sometimes give your services for nothing, calling to mind a previous benefaction or present satisfaction. And if there be an opportunity of serving one who is a stranger in financial straits, give full assistance to all such.

"And it is well to superintend the sick to make them well, to care for the healthy to keep them well, also to care for one's own self, so as to observe what is seemly."

(Hippocrates, Precepts )

If it is so clearly wrong for a doctor to put money before the treatment of all to the best of his ability, how much more wrong is it for a businessman to seek to profit from treatment given by a doctor?

To be a doctor is and should always remain a vocation, a call to the selfless service of mankind, no different to that of religious ministry or politics; whilst many may be able to offer payment, such fees must never influence the standard or availability of services.