Hospitals!

I am not a huge fan of reading blogs, but recently I have come across a few of them where the non-medical bloggers have aptly described their experience as a visitor to a hospital. They never had anything against the doctors as such, but their perspective towards the whole setting there has left me wondering about a lot of things. This has also been the topic of discussion at innumerable times.

The behavior of many people, which includes not only the patients and the visitors but also the healthcare workers, is something I have often been uncomfortable with.

• The doctor is talking to the patient. Just when you are explaining them the course of the disease or the treatment options, the mobile phone rings (of the patient, of course). The patient leaves you waiting and she merrily chats about her kid, her sister's kid, her sister's neighbor's kid and the all the kids in the world. You shoot stern glances at the patient and, at that very moment, she realizes that you are waiting for her. "Oh! Chalo abhi main rakhti hu, hospital main hu. Arey nahi, kuch nahi hua. Baad mein baat karti hu." And then the formal goodbyes before hanging up the phone! Can the doctor ever say back anything?

The sign that says to switch off the mobile phones in the consultation room is safely ignored.

• You are rushing to the labor room to get the progress report, for the doctor, about the high-risk patient who had bled on her way to the hospital and was stabilized once in. A man with all his force, spits on the wall, just next to the dustbin! Thanks to your reflexes, you just managed to stop right in time! Me, being the kind of person I am, chose to say a word or two to the man instead of ignoring the incident altogether.

These are just a few examples. However, the good part is that this constitutes only a minority of people, who are from far-off villages and have had no experience to be in a treatment-center bigger than a 12 x 12 feet area, where there are patients other than them.

On the other hand, there also has been an incident where a young girl, maybe just out of high school, very politely offered to help me in the huge amount of very mechanical paper-work I had, while all the other people were standing in line (a line is an under-statement, maybe I should say - a crowd jumping on my table) to get their papers done quickly.

The situation is changing and changing for the good!

PS: the good and bad about the healthcare workers in the next section.