(Warning: The tone of this post, though factual, is strong and straightforward. If you're expecting a nice/diplomatic read, stay away)
Whores, I'm told, are followers of the best Operations practices, especially a quick TAT. For the uninitiated, TAT stands for turn-around time, or the time it takes between starting with a fresh customer to err, "discharging" him and starting to look out for another. In cruder terms, she's trying to give you a helluva ride but finish off as soon as possible so she can stand out and woo another client. The emotion is fake, its the money that matters.
Today I had a pretty similar experience. Down with viral fever (a recurrence, actually) I visited a local hospital to see a young doctor who's made quite a name for himself. As with all Indian hospitals, a cramped hallway with a cramped reception (and gloomy looking attendants who look like they're doing you a favour by replying to you) greeted us. After standing in queue to pay advance (its always advance, isn't it?) we were allotted a token number at 6.59 PM. The doctor was inside a separate room with a digital display. It read 91. Ours was 114. In other words, he would have to see 23 patients before he could see me.
Fair enough, let's sit. Again, as with all Indian hospitals, the number of patients outnumbered the number of chairs 3 to 1. As with all Indian families, for each single patient, a family of at least 4 had turned up (what is this, a family picnic in hospital?). So actual patients had to stand while buas/maasis/younger sisters of other patients "reserved" seats for the jijaji/papaji/tauji who had just turned up.
So we stood. Tiring, standing wait in a cramped hall, watching the digital display as if your life depends on it.
By 8.30, the display read 114. I told my wife, "Have you noticed? The good doctor has seen 23 patients in the last 91 minutes. That's an average time of just 4 minutes per patient." Memories of the legendary Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, who could tell a patient's illness just by looking at him, flashed in my mind.
We entered. The doctor was a young chap looking thoroughly disinterested. He asked me what my ailment was. I barely had time to tell him that the symptoms look like viral, and I have had fever and weakness. He took a stethoscope to my chest, kept it for about 2 seconds and removed it even before I started breathing deep. Then he asked me to put out my tongue, gave a flickering glance at it and started writing down something on the pad.
That's the physical check? The words "That's it?" almost came out my mouth when he started to speak. "You have viral. It might be flu, or viral dengue." "But doctor, I told you I have no respiratory blockage, and my body isn't paining." With a dismissive tone " You never know, this might be mild dengue. Have this medicine (a paracetamol), this one (an antibiotic) and do these blood tests. Take rest, and drink plenty of fluids"
"But doctor, I have this characteristic. If I take antibiotic, the fever gets suppressed and recurs after a few months. Please don't give me antibiotics". By this time, he looked like he was annoyed with the patient acting knowledgeable, and his fingers were already on the digital display controls. So we left. 3 minutes 30 seconds. The doctor had bettered his TAT.
I stormed out of the hospital, asking my wife not to buy anything. Anyone knows that a paracetamol controls fever and an antibiotic suppresses it. Anyone knows drinking plenty of fluids and taking rest is good for fever. Here was a whore with an MD degree, running through patients with almost no physical checks, relying on blood tests to find out what was wrong. The only difference is, the whore wouldn't have made you wait 90 minutes. Agonizingly. And not to forget, YOU are the one getting screwed.
You would tell me its unfair to brand an entire community/profession for the sake of a few bad nuts. The point is, in my 31 years I've seen at least 31 cases of medical negligence, and far worse where the patient has to give up his life.
In 2004 a girl I knew admitted her mom to Suraksha hospital (now AMRI Salt Lake). The lady, 44 years old, had cirrhosis in a small portion of her liver. The doctors said the affected area was small and easily curable with a small operation. They operated on her within a week, and she started recovering. Ironically they also ran up a bill of 5.5 Lakhs in that one week, and this family (which was not very well to do in the first place) had a tough time arranging the money. For the first 2 days after her operation, the lady started recovering. On the 3rd day, she turned blue and collapsed. A check revealed that she had septicemia due to the stitching not being done properly. The doctors did a second operation on her (no guesses as to who paid for it), but she continued to go worse. After a total of 15 days, the cash-strapped family couldn't continue her treatment in a private hospital. They took her to a government hospital, where the doctors said she had developed pneumonia as a hospital infection. She passed away the next day. Poisoned and weakened, killed due to an ailment nothing to do with her original cause.
I do remember fighting with the private hospital staff. Every day they would just give a single line bill where an obscene amount of money was mentioned. I fought with them everyday, even barging into the super's office and threatening legal action. On the 7th day they gave me a detailed bill. It had 2.1 lakh rupees detailed out as doctor's fees, room rent, oxygen cylinder etc.). The last page of the bill carried a single line -"Medicine - 2.9 lakhs". I am yet to find out what 41,000 rupees of medicine put together in a single day looks like.
What also depresses me is the attitude of the doctors. That same year a close friend's father passed away in Calcutta Medical college (They were poor people and could just afford a general ward bed). It was early morning, and he had been staying with me the previous night. We rushed to the hospital and went to see his father's body. He was lying on the bed, not even covered with a sheet, no nurses (forget doctors) in sight. It was my friend's brother who had discovered his father in the morning, the news didn't come from the hospital.
It took us 20 minutes to find an attendant, and we had to bribe him to take the body down to the morgue. Still no doctors in sight. Then we went down to the area which said "Free phone for patient's families", as my friend wanted to inform his family. Remember it was 2004, and not everyone had mobile phones. We found a huge queue lined up in front of the phone, and imagine our surprise when we discovered the only resident doctor chatting away with his girlfriend on that phone! I lost it, and started shouting at the doctor, telling him he's not doing his duty and abusing public rights. He would have retaliated, but moved away when the entire crowd became vocal in my support.
I can go on and on, but you get the point. It wasn't always like this. In my childhood, visiting the "doctor uncles" we knew used to be a pleasant experience. They would talk to you in a sugar coated voice the first few minutes, dissipating the child's inherent fear with pleasantries. Then they would ask you to lie down and do a full physical check. Then the sugar coated voice would return as the child was told to be careful and follow certain discipline over the course of the illness. The voice would turn a shade graver as your father was told what the ailment was, big scientific words you never understood. Except injections, visiting doctors always was a pleasant experience. And we did get cured, blood tests be damned.
To sum up, welcome to the 21st century. All doctors are whores of varied kinds, and hospitals are brothels, with the madame looking to make a few extra bucks by sucking your blood, err, testing it, and ultimately your life. As Nachiketa Chakraborty's song goes "The butcher kills in broad daylight, you (doctors) have your chambers."
And don't worry, I've called someone to test my blood tomorrow.
Whores, I'm told, are followers of the best Operations practices, especially a quick TAT. For the uninitiated, TAT stands for turn-around time, or the time it takes between starting with a fresh customer to err, "discharging" him and starting to look out for another. In cruder terms, she's trying to give you a helluva ride but finish off as soon as possible so she can stand out and woo another client. The emotion is fake, its the money that matters.
Today I had a pretty similar experience. Down with viral fever (a recurrence, actually) I visited a local hospital to see a young doctor who's made quite a name for himself. As with all Indian hospitals, a cramped hallway with a cramped reception (and gloomy looking attendants who look like they're doing you a favour by replying to you) greeted us. After standing in queue to pay advance (its always advance, isn't it?) we were allotted a token number at 6.59 PM. The doctor was inside a separate room with a digital display. It read 91. Ours was 114. In other words, he would have to see 23 patients before he could see me.
Fair enough, let's sit. Again, as with all Indian hospitals, the number of patients outnumbered the number of chairs 3 to 1. As with all Indian families, for each single patient, a family of at least 4 had turned up (what is this, a family picnic in hospital?). So actual patients had to stand while buas/maasis/younger sisters of other patients "reserved" seats for the jijaji/papaji/tauji who had just turned up.
So we stood. Tiring, standing wait in a cramped hall, watching the digital display as if your life depends on it.
By 8.30, the display read 114. I told my wife, "Have you noticed? The good doctor has seen 23 patients in the last 91 minutes. That's an average time of just 4 minutes per patient." Memories of the legendary Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, who could tell a patient's illness just by looking at him, flashed in my mind.
We entered. The doctor was a young chap looking thoroughly disinterested. He asked me what my ailment was. I barely had time to tell him that the symptoms look like viral, and I have had fever and weakness. He took a stethoscope to my chest, kept it for about 2 seconds and removed it even before I started breathing deep. Then he asked me to put out my tongue, gave a flickering glance at it and started writing down something on the pad.
That's the physical check? The words "That's it?" almost came out my mouth when he started to speak. "You have viral. It might be flu, or viral dengue." "But doctor, I told you I have no respiratory blockage, and my body isn't paining." With a dismissive tone " You never know, this might be mild dengue. Have this medicine (a paracetamol), this one (an antibiotic) and do these blood tests. Take rest, and drink plenty of fluids"
"But doctor, I have this characteristic. If I take antibiotic, the fever gets suppressed and recurs after a few months. Please don't give me antibiotics". By this time, he looked like he was annoyed with the patient acting knowledgeable, and his fingers were already on the digital display controls. So we left. 3 minutes 30 seconds. The doctor had bettered his TAT.
I stormed out of the hospital, asking my wife not to buy anything. Anyone knows that a paracetamol controls fever and an antibiotic suppresses it. Anyone knows drinking plenty of fluids and taking rest is good for fever. Here was a whore with an MD degree, running through patients with almost no physical checks, relying on blood tests to find out what was wrong. The only difference is, the whore wouldn't have made you wait 90 minutes. Agonizingly. And not to forget, YOU are the one getting screwed.
You would tell me its unfair to brand an entire community/profession for the sake of a few bad nuts. The point is, in my 31 years I've seen at least 31 cases of medical negligence, and far worse where the patient has to give up his life.
In 2004 a girl I knew admitted her mom to Suraksha hospital (now AMRI Salt Lake). The lady, 44 years old, had cirrhosis in a small portion of her liver. The doctors said the affected area was small and easily curable with a small operation. They operated on her within a week, and she started recovering. Ironically they also ran up a bill of 5.5 Lakhs in that one week, and this family (which was not very well to do in the first place) had a tough time arranging the money. For the first 2 days after her operation, the lady started recovering. On the 3rd day, she turned blue and collapsed. A check revealed that she had septicemia due to the stitching not being done properly. The doctors did a second operation on her (no guesses as to who paid for it), but she continued to go worse. After a total of 15 days, the cash-strapped family couldn't continue her treatment in a private hospital. They took her to a government hospital, where the doctors said she had developed pneumonia as a hospital infection. She passed away the next day. Poisoned and weakened, killed due to an ailment nothing to do with her original cause.
I do remember fighting with the private hospital staff. Every day they would just give a single line bill where an obscene amount of money was mentioned. I fought with them everyday, even barging into the super's office and threatening legal action. On the 7th day they gave me a detailed bill. It had 2.1 lakh rupees detailed out as doctor's fees, room rent, oxygen cylinder etc.). The last page of the bill carried a single line -"Medicine - 2.9 lakhs". I am yet to find out what 41,000 rupees of medicine put together in a single day looks like.
What also depresses me is the attitude of the doctors. That same year a close friend's father passed away in Calcutta Medical college (They were poor people and could just afford a general ward bed). It was early morning, and he had been staying with me the previous night. We rushed to the hospital and went to see his father's body. He was lying on the bed, not even covered with a sheet, no nurses (forget doctors) in sight. It was my friend's brother who had discovered his father in the morning, the news didn't come from the hospital.
It took us 20 minutes to find an attendant, and we had to bribe him to take the body down to the morgue. Still no doctors in sight. Then we went down to the area which said "Free phone for patient's families", as my friend wanted to inform his family. Remember it was 2004, and not everyone had mobile phones. We found a huge queue lined up in front of the phone, and imagine our surprise when we discovered the only resident doctor chatting away with his girlfriend on that phone! I lost it, and started shouting at the doctor, telling him he's not doing his duty and abusing public rights. He would have retaliated, but moved away when the entire crowd became vocal in my support.
I can go on and on, but you get the point. It wasn't always like this. In my childhood, visiting the "doctor uncles" we knew used to be a pleasant experience. They would talk to you in a sugar coated voice the first few minutes, dissipating the child's inherent fear with pleasantries. Then they would ask you to lie down and do a full physical check. Then the sugar coated voice would return as the child was told to be careful and follow certain discipline over the course of the illness. The voice would turn a shade graver as your father was told what the ailment was, big scientific words you never understood. Except injections, visiting doctors always was a pleasant experience. And we did get cured, blood tests be damned.
To sum up, welcome to the 21st century. All doctors are whores of varied kinds, and hospitals are brothels, with the madame looking to make a few extra bucks by sucking your blood, err, testing it, and ultimately your life. As Nachiketa Chakraborty's song goes "The butcher kills in broad daylight, you (doctors) have your chambers."
And don't worry, I've called someone to test my blood tomorrow.
Very true.. As a practicing doctor in Australia, I find the practice of doctors seeing an obscenely huge number of patients in one day and then charge them an osbscenely huge bill unfathomable. On a busy day, I will see 20 patients. The more experienced once might see one every fifteen minutes. And we are talking about a 9 hour day. Mind you the patient does not pay a single cent for the services we render. It is a pity that there is no regulatory body in India. It was one of the reasons why I left. I am ashamed to admit that I would like to go back, we then I would be able to survive in the free for all environment that is Indian Medicine.
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