I remember once sitting on a bench in the government hospital one morning, waiting for my turn for medical certification unaware that something very unspectacular would force me to think of the reasons people fear going to govt. hospitals.
As any govt. hospital, this too was stinking with the smell of medicines. Echoing cries of infants suggested the nearness of the maternity ward.
Two women sat beside me complaining incessantly to each other about the uncleanliness in govt. hospitals and the costliness of the private ones from the last 20 minutes. They had been exchanging their precious political insights, observations and conclusions with one another on ten or so other topics:-
-how the new generations of daughters-in-law were inciting their men to rebel against his parents,
-how sending girls to school was leading to an increase in the number of girls running away with boys (one of them had smartly dropped her daughter out of school already),
-how their respective mothers-in-law wanted to break their happy families by flaming trivial things up against them every now and then (can you see the contradiction here?), etc.
I began reading my personal details on the certificate in order to ignore their funny and equally irritating ignorant conversation.
Through their similar ongoing blather did I come to know that one of them was called Santosh and the other one was Mishri. They’d come to visit a distant relative of theirs, a woman named Savitra, who had given birth to a baby boy last night.
Santosh- I used to think Savitra’s man acted fool only when he was drunk. But this man turned out to be a dolt as well as a miser. How could a man admit his woman in a govt. hospital for delivery?
Mishri- But the family is very poor to afford even three square meals a day. Private hospitals would cost Savitra’s man both his kidneys or even more.
Santosh- But can you put the life of your woman and child on stake for money? For the kidneys who just have 25% life left in them. Don’t you know what a drunkard he is, Mishri? Doctors and his family have given up on him already. By god’s grace his lineage has been saved with the birth of this boy after 6 girls.
Mishri- Truth it is, my sister. I had never thought of the risks. It is a shame on manhood and humanity that people take their women to govt. hospitals. Money is above the life of their family for such people. I would never take any of my family members to a govt. hospital even for the treatment of flu!
“Oh!”, I exclaimed to myself.
The poor man who doesn’t sell his kidneys for treatment in a private hospital is a lame man with no real manhood and humanity!
The conclusion of those women was clearly wrong. But that wasn't what hurt me. Their theory behind the conclusion was undoubtedly correct. And that did hurt.
The unhygienic conditions of these Sarkari hospitals were more likely to infect the healthy than to disinfect the ill.
The likeliness of dying in the long queues halfway to the doctor was more than dying in the stretcher.
The probability of getting transferred to some bigger hospital was higher than of getting operated on time.
The chances of getting admitted alive were lesser than getting stored dead.
The utter shortage of beds in the ICU, blood in the bank, doctors in the OT, ambulances in working conditions, would take your life than save.
Bhanu, Aryan
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