Great doctors and poor patient Wednesday, 04 September 2013 07:00. Ishrat Mattoo Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right or wrong! Luke “Time is money!” I always associated the slogan with the Corporate World. But the slogan seems to have become the principle of everyone including those who have been provided with the Below Poverty Line certificates, the only difference being that their time never becomes money. Had it been so, they would have been the richest in the world. Moreover, time is also used to edify the hierarchies operating in the society. For instance time of a doctor is precious and that of the patients is surplus, of no use to them. Therefore they must wait and suffer. Everyone in Kashmir knows that every system in the valley is as rotten and stinky as the air in Sheher-e-khaas. Healthcare is no exception. It is as poor and ugly as our roads; while as one comes across small macadamized patches, the rest of the journey is, for sure, to be bumpy and troublesome. Hospitals in Srinagar (for I have had a pleasure of visiting only them, you must have the same experience of the ones you visit) are far from sufficient. Moreover they are inefficient and ill-managed as systems. To visit a hospital means to take a day off from the work. As our times would have it, 9 out of 10 people seem to suffer from one or the other ailment. If everyone visits these inefficient systems, the poor structures won’t stand it. Therefore private clinics become an option for many people who have been able to spin their time into money. But you not only need money to visit private clinics but also a lot of time and patience to suffer there. Doctors who are generally regarded as best as per the public opinion , the opinion of the ill, have divine right to make you suffer for the same. Like we are made feel privileged at the airports by shops that sell us things at four times greater cost than the market price, certain doctors too make us feel privileged in curious ways, for instance by making us wait for them for long so that we could feel the greatness in our very waiting aching muscles. Recently I had a visit to such a great doctor. I was asked to take the appointment at 1 pm and come again between 3 and 4 pm. So far so good! Reaching the place at 3.15, I was told that patients are examined by junior doctors because great doctors obviously won’t have time for examining junior things. While I had been waiting until 4, I start imagining the form of the great doctor. I asked a fellow patient that the doctor is perhaps late today; she frowned and said that he will not come before 5.30pm. Sometimes he turns up at 6, depending upon his mood. I was very indignant at this. My fellow patient tried to console me or rather she was consoling herself that it is we who are helpless. Why should they care? This attitude of complacency angered me all the more. I went to the assistant and enquired of him that why should patients suffer for three long hours and he, in turn, confirmed the truth of the theory of helplessness by returning the consultation fee minus 10 rupees for the prescription on which he had written my name. Since we have forgotten the symphonies of orchestra of our spirit, Zubin’s will serve us right.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 10:33:00 +0000
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