President Tokayev gave public servants a recommendation to not pay great attention to comments coming from “arm-chair generals”, but it looks like many of them read it as the direct order to ignore social networks.
Addressing the Government on the 12th of December, President Tokayev highlighted, that, instead of addressing realistic needs of the people, public servants worried more about feedbacks coming from social networks, although those feedbacks had not much to do with reality. Comments from “arm-chair generals” should not be interpreted, as, either support from masses, or their condemnation.
Most of people in Kazakhstan are far away from politics and social network hyping processes. Those people form the real foundation of our country. That is exactly why those masses must feel the realistic support raining upon them from the “Hearing State”,
President Tokayev said.
We do not exclude, that it was then that many top-ranking officials felt relief, because they interpreted President’s words, as an order to forget about social networks. In the matter of just several last years, social networks became almost the one and only instrument capable of forcing public servants to render the realistic help and support, as required by the “Hearing State” philosophy.
As for the Health Ministry, it was long before President’s Tokayev comments, that the Ministry would simply ignore social networks, even when the latter raised questions about real problems. So, it appears, that for Minister Azhar Giniyat, a rather selective reaction of social networks as a rather habitual course of behavior.
We Will Ask Questions About Equipment
The ALEM RESEARCH exercise regarding the monitoring of social networks and Mass Media shows that, since the start of the year, healthcare sphere was under most considerate attention from Kazakh sector of Internet. Internet users whole-heartedly discussed malpractices, triggering active public reaction, insufficient availability of medicines, conditional of medical care in rural areas , Medevac aviation and, of course, the Ministry itself, as the Ministry promised to bring indigenous healthcare to the condition of the bestest. Another hot topic was the training of young doctors, in regards to which question, the Minister, surprisingly enough, did express something, not even something, but something in the very positive tone. Reality turned out far from positiveness. And then came an anonymous memorandum from students of the Astana Medical University discussing insanely poor quality of academic process, as well as much poorer condition of the practical training. That anonymous memorandum became widespread and widely talked about.
Giniyat reacted to the memorandum in a couple of days, and only because she got caught and boxed by journalists.
At present, the University is being checked by appropriate authorized commissions. Those commissions will organize an anonymous public poll to identify, whether complaints in the Memorandum were true or not,
the Minister said.
The authors of the memorandum, by the way, reported obsolete training equipment, but the Minister did not mention that. Some social network activists suggested that the students would be offered to answer the question, whether they thought that the training equipment was obsolete or not and why.
Faculties Are Something Different
Apparently, such a robust reaction from Her Excellency, the Minister of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to the problem inspired some other future doctors. A certain individual introducing himself as a student at the Ahmed Yassawi Turkestan International Kazakh-Turkish University published a rather lengthy post describing the horrors of academic process, the essence of which post, in brief, was as follows – “ compared to my faculty, students of the Astana Medical University live in paradise on Earth “.
Azhar Giniyat ignored that appeal from Turkestan, although the post was tagged by users to her personal official page and to the website of the Ministry. The Minister maintained “cyber and radio silence”. How can we not, in connection with that, but not recollect the words of our President stating that officials should not very much be troubled by what is written in social networks.
The President, however, knew, what he meant – he talked about comments coming from lovers of hype, he did not explicitly instruct officials to ignore the discussions on real problems. And we allow for the supposition that the Minister just chose not to dive too deep into nuances and technicalities – President instructs, Minister conforms.
In theory, nevertheless, there should not be any bones to pick with her, because if the “clean” universities report to her Ministry, the medical faculties in non-medical higher education institutions more belong with the auspices of Sayasat Nurbek, the Minister of Higher Education. Medical faculties in non-medical academic institutions appear odd -still, we think that the process of education of specialists to handle our lives and health should be controlled by one body of governance.
In has been almost a month, since the Minister promised to run an anonymous public poll among Astana Medical University students. There have been no report about the results, or, at least, about how the Ministry implemented such a complicated campaign. Azhar Giniyat’s Facebook page is rich in reports about successful journeys to the regions, fruitful visits paid to various medical centers and, of course, congratulations of compatriots on the Day of Independence.
As for the Astana Medical University itself, it only produced one public report ever since. It was about the awarding of the Akmola Province Governor with the ranks of the Professor Emeritus for invaluable contribution in the development of healthcare in the region.
Health Ministry Did Not Appreciate the Concept?
There is something else… In response to the post published by Ahmed Yassawi University student, a Vice-President of the University reported that, actually, the leadership of the University had designed a concept, by which their medical faculty would integrate with the Ahmed Yassawi University hospital and some international medical universities. The concept was duly approved and endorsed. The process of integration was supposed to commence in 2020. Its mission is to create a realistically professional eco-system incorporating future doctors, hospitals, medical R&D hubs and others concerned. It could become another successful implementation of the time-trialed international practice. The minimal benefit from the initiative would be in the form of modern laboratories.
Our greatest nuisance is that we are deaf, when our students voice their hopes. We are just not creating the professional eco-system in our universities. Alas and Darn, but we respond to criticism from students in an aggressive and counter-productive manner. We ignore the principle that “Criticism is the Best Friend of Development and Improvement”. We are not making the right conclusions!!! We are not taught to act that way!!!
The Covid-19 pandemic might justify failure to kick-off the Ahmed Yassawi University medical faculty’s integration. But, now, that the pandemic is retreating, the question may be revitalized, but, again, looks like it will once more bring the Minister into the regime of “sealed lips”. The response from the Ahmed Yassawi University Vice-President was redirected to Azhar Giniyat – she, habitually, maintained silence.
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