Eighteen years of my life I have lived under the protection and care of my parents. Like any other young one belonging to any species I grew up without a care, taking for granted that my well being is the headache of my parents. My duty was to keep them worried. I ate from roadside shop, got wet in rain, moved without warm clothes during winters and did everything possible within my powers to keep them anxious round the clock. I think many of the crusades of mine to make myself ill were actually successful ensuring the complete misery of my parents. After 12th I moved out from the comforts of my nest to Delhi – from a capital to a capital. Bringing with myself the careless attitude to a place which was knew to me. So the inevitable eventually happened, I got sick. Fortunately I had some relatives in Delhi to trouble during these times. Till the time I was in St. Stephens i.e. my first year of my stay in Delhi my visits to the epitome of medicinal treatment for anybody sick had been limited. If you are unable to think about the place I am talking about then let me reveal it. I am talking about hospitals. Yes my friends the place which can induce reactions like fear, serenity and so on.
You might be wondering what I have to write about hospitals in my post. Truly speaking, in between the process of penning down my thoughts I was also wondering, What the hell am I writing about? But after a little battle inside my head I was finally able to put into writing the things I wanted to reveal about hospitals. After a year in Delhi I shifted my base from a room in North Campus/a room in south-ex/ a room infiit-jee hostel to a room in the nilgiri hostel, IIT Delhi. This is the place from where my journey begins. The journey which I have never wanted to be a part of, but I guess life has a way to teach make you experience even about things you wish you never had been a part of.
IIT Delhi had an in house hospital more popular by the name of sick bay. One thing good about this hospital was that it was free. Free in not only in the consultancy charges but it also gave free medicines prescribed by the doctor. I guess they provide each and every person living in the campus with a medicine booklet in
which the entry of diagnosis and medicine is made. I had a strange experience with this hospital. Being free I guess the consultants over here were never shy of giving you hoards of medicine. I did not have a very good personal experience as once I got treated for a disease which I never had and I got well only when I reached home. I guess providing a free facility has its own pros and cons. After having experience of this hospital once we (my friends and myself) never got ill. This was more so because of the fear of going to this hospital than a better immune system. As someone said “Johota hai acche ke liye hota hai ”, thus having a hospital with such a bad reputation had its benefit in its own way. No doubt this hospital was definitely able to heal and cure plenty but somehow I remember it more because of its fault () and probably most of us (IITians) who have visited that place would agree wit it and enjoy a few chuckle here and there at its behest.
After my stay in IIT I got a a calling from Bangalore and here at this place I had a total experience of hospital. If I sum together the number of hospitals I have visited then probably it will be more than the total number of visits of my life before this place. Bangalore has very many hospitals and if you have money to spend then you will be able to buy the best of care. They have a concept of getting all at one place but my observation tells me that this holy institution has got too commercialized over here. I will jot down some of the experiences I had in Bangalore. The first one was because a friends sister who had got ankle fracture. She admitted herself inHosmat (one of the best places for orthopaedics in Bangalore) where she got operated and was admitted. I guess being one of the best it must have a good place for treating your bone injuries. Then I supposeMallaya Hospital visit was unavoidable for a company sponsored annual health checkup. I guess it was more of a holiday than a generally tension filled hospital visit. This wasbecause of the fact that it gave us (my colleagues and myself)to bunk one half of the day in office and we were probably the only giggling group in the hospital. As usual the checkup was not so bad as we did not wait for too long for anything because of the appointment which we had done beforehand. Then came the two biggies which is the driving factor behind this post. The first one was my friend who at the middle of the night and in the middle of a party in which I was in got sick and needed immediate medical care. That same evening I along with some other concerned people had taken her for checkup in Mahavir Jain hospital. Unfortunately the same night she had breathing problems and we got her admitted to Medizone an affiliate to jain hospital. In this hospital the stark differences between a big and a small hospitals came into fore. Although this hospital had consultants from big hospital but we had to wait for the specialist to come for a long time(in fact a day or two). So it was frustrating for us attendants to see her suffer in the absence of proper care. Proper care came only when the specialist came. This incident made me think of the poor that how difficult might be for them to get proper care in the absence of monetary back up. I wish hospitals would never have been commercialized but the irony is that money talks and it talks well. After 4-5 days of staying in the hospital I was happy to leave the hospital with my friend into her own old self but somehow after this visit I became more sceptical as well as philosophical on the situation of hospitals today. A bad taste in mouth I expected to have least contact with such places anymore but somethings are never according to your wishes.
I did not had to wait for long for another visit to a hospital. It happened so that on the way to my friends home I had to see his encounter with his destiny which would confine him in his home for long. He was riding a jet black Karizma and me a red pulsar. And it so happened that when you test your fate by drinking and driving you manage to defeat it. But the so called fate has its own way of getting back and mocking you in your face. And more often than not when the accident happens you will not be drunk and it will mostly be the faultof the other person. So this fateful or not so fateful night the inevitable happened and that friend of mine met an accident with me watching all the fateful moments in slow motion from behind (from my own bike). This resulted in me visiting two different hospitals in Bangalore. Immediately we took him to the nearest hospital which was CMH hospital where his initial needs were taken care of and after contemplating a lot about which hospital we should get his operation done we zeroed down onsagar apollo hospital. Their he went under the knife and has become a partial robol after that with plates and screws inside his leg. Nevertheless the care taken in apollo was nice but I guess it was more so because they could charge him anything and take the money from the medical insurance he had. One good thing of having this insurance is one can go to any hospital and everything will be taken care of and more over the concept ofeverything will be taken care of was well implemented in apollo. I guess money really talks even in the noblest of profession such as medicine.
Ahhhh....after writing so much I am still thinking why am I writing this. I guess its only to broadcast that don't worry if anything ever happens to you in Bangalore and you know feel free to ping me cause I now can dare to say that "Hey I know inside out of hospitals ;)"
