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Friday, January 11, 2008

A Noble Profession, You Say?

This whole hospitalisation-healthcare in India is a scam. Yes, I realized it recently, quite closely and personally. Earlier, during the start of the 2000’s I had lost both my parents and had spent considerable time with them in hospital rooms. And I am sorely disillusioned what practising medicine and the noble profession of saving people’s lives have become.

It’s like this: I had a medical emergency and was admitted to the hospital by a friend. Obviously I am going through trauma, my wife and son are also affected, and I am led into medical procedures without any sensitivity, am insulted rather, by some of the questions. The healthcare givers are in their own worlds, never acknowledging the fact that the patient (me) could be in a very sensitive condition of mind. They don’t give me a word of assurance, or, a word to say I will be okay. How can they when they are in their own world?

I watch as expensive medicines are ordered and my wife and son run about buying them. (I wonder: are they pushing the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies, or what? They seem to be saying, pssssttt, here prescribe these products; the pharma company has promised me a free holiday. Obviously the way they go about it I feel the person, the sensitive individual, whose life this whole drama is all about, is being ignored.)

The doctor is a supercilious individual and is blunt with his words. Never even once does he say a word that I should give my body some movement, and that though sick, I should try and walk about a bit. The result: I get swelling in my feet from lying around for too long with tubes attached to my body, rather painfully by the untrained, novitiate nurses.

I am glad I am medically insured. But in the middle of the night an emergency case comes to the abovementioned hospital and I can clearly hear them fighting. The patient is unconscious and they aren’t willing to admit her. Obviously she neither has money or people to back her.

Sad to say I came out of hospital quite disillusioned. Recovery is in process, and I can say I am making some progress, eating well and exercising a lot. Guess my faith is what saved me and not modern medicine. I am a bit tired, so I ammmm offfffff to some sleep!

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