'Such Cases'
I decided to drop in to the hospital to see my doctor friend at work in his first month as intern. (The one year training after studies and before getting your MBBS degree). His friend and he had been working for over 10 days on a couple of patients in nephrology department. For many it was the recurring treatment they had to undergo because of the failure of their kidneys. patients with kidney failure, dialysis was the only treatment. They could not afford a kidney transplant surgery.
It was evening time and as I was entering the hospital, he came out. He saw me, took me by my hand and we went and sat inside his car. He burst out crying. I asked him why. Between his sobs he told me.
Basavaraja was his 65 year old patient who had kidney failure. He had called my friend in and told him that he would become a very good doctor and was a nice person and this was the last time he would be seeing him. He added that he could not afford the treatment and hence he had decided to stop it and return home to his village. He said that he knew that he was going to die soon and said he was 'ok' with it. Basavaraja had walked off and my friend did not know how to respond.
I had always heard about such cases, have seen many 70's and 80's movies which had poverty has a theme, but this was different. I did not know what to tell my friend.
I am sure that my friend would get used to such cases as he works. That, sadly, is the reality. We all 'get used' to it. And Basavaraja mingles with countless others and becomes 'such cases'.
3 comments:
Man...that was trajic.
Couldn't Basavaraja get any kind of help from the govt. hospitals? Or is this hospital already a government one.
I have read that the CMH helps out these patients a great deal.
Well I am sure, Basavaraja would have explored these avenues, but I could help asking.
Probably these missionaries and govt. help is only on paper.
True. I guess your friend will have to start getting used to such things. As a software engineer i can afford to write erroneous code and get away with it in some patch work. Cannot imagine how it would feel to be in the operation theatre and make a similar mistake. Was just thinking how many doctors make such mistakes and get over it coz the have "gotten used to is"....anyway i guess i am deviating.
a good food for thot ravi
cheers
kripa shankar:
It was a government hospital. Though I did not follow up on Basavaraja, but I know that this is not an isolated incident. And one gets to see a lot of such cases in nephrology department than elsewhere.
I would not dismiss missionary and government help straight away, the problem is never in the policies. The problem is in its implementation and execution. Isnt it ironic that at the highest level we have wonderful policy formulators, but these people would rarely want to get their hands dirty.
Working with government agencies and seeing them in action has convinced me that its in the execution front that we lack and government is doing a pretty decent work otherwise.
anyways, i'm straying here. The overall point being someone needs to do something? That someone could be others or inside us. Are those 'someone' listening?
its not just the money ravi... one of my cousins dropped out of med school in his final yr MD.. cos he became emotioanlly attached to a patient for whom he had arranged the necessary funds but could not save inspite of all that... it took him 3 yrs to get over it and resume his studies.. but he had to change his specialisation...
the medical profession's tryst with death, makes one understand more about "what has been" and "what could have been".
Life is full of compromises... Even at the time of death.
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