This ones an embarrassing write up and Ive been pondering upon it for months whether to jot it down and release it on air or not. Its my bad habit to analytically observe whatever is happening around me and deduce meaningful inferences from the view flashing in front of me. The vividness of the scene dictates the robustness of my inferences. A couple of years back, we were just back after paying a visit to one of my colleagues who unfortunately got into major health trouble. My staff nurse came into my chamber and when she came to know where we had been back from, commented----- Sir, he was a very dirty man. I have worked in his OT and he used to just give skin incisions and apply stitches without removing the appendix. She did not stop at that and proceeded with her oration---- Sir, God has done right to him. Reference---- Surgeon colleague in Chandigarh. I was flabbergasted. I just told her that it was none of her business to talk about my colleague like that. However, this rang a bell in my brain, because this girl was a good one. At the same time, I decided not to put my analytical apparatus into gear on this data presented to me because 1). its authenticity was questionable and 2). Its origin most possibly was ? retaliatory i.e., this colleague must have blasted this girl a couple of time and now she was mudslinging him. Chapter closed, but somewhere at the back of my mind, this always kept troubling me, because such allegations are extremely savage ones, generally heard, but never seen in person. However, I continually kept this issue ignored into my mental deep background, without allowing it to come in front. After a couple of months, the agony of my colleague ended in his end, probably God accepted the prayers of his loved ones and colleagues. It was a very sad happening. But Gods acts man cannot understand---- better to accept them without any regrets. However, it was a tragedy that still haunts many. It was untimely, undeserved and above all, ghastly. Whenever I think of this colleague, I always pray for the peace of his soul. Over so many years, Ive been doing this. However, a fresh scene flashed ahead of my eyes a few weeks back, that flooded that incident back, in all its vividness and vibrance. I was operating on alien turf and the surgeon remarked--- KJ you are too meticulous. You demand everything new--- nothing to be reused. You are expensive. Do you know that Dr. XXYY (whos now no more) use to reuse them. Since I could really not understand what was being told to me, I requested him to repeat his words again. Since I still could not understand the concept, I requested my colleague to explain it to me diagrammatically, which he did. This happened back in the surgeons room after I had conducted a 4 hour long surgery and we were having coffee and relaxing while the anaesthetist was getting the patient out from anaesthesia. It was a rude SHOCK. During gallbladder removal we use surgical clips. Routine, about 6 or more clips are used in one operation---- more maybe by 3-4 but NEVER EVER less than 6. Out of the 6 clips, 2 go out with the organ and are discarded. The concept presented to me here was that these 2 clips that are to be discarded----- use to be reused on a subsequent patient, of course by just washing them in spirit or betadine. I refused to believe this. However, he reinforced that this was told to him first hand by my posthumous colleague in first voice. The moment this was told to me, that allegation by the nurse came to the forefront of my mind. The posthumous surgeon in question was the same! Oh my God! How many of such critical clips must have failed, how many infectious complications must have occurred, how many post operative ERCPs must have been requisitioned due to the failure of these clips and how many patients must have even died primarily from clip failure or the ERCP (yes, its killing occasionally). Its a crime. Its a cheap crime---- cost of 2 clips--- 600 bucks. Saving 600 buck for oneself must have cost lives often or translated into cost of lakhs to salvage complications created by reusing them. In fact, it beats me, how can they be reused. Youve seen the paper stapler havent you--- well its something as, trying to reuse the stapler pin again after taking it off the paper that is being thrown into the dust bin! The concept is that outrageous. Many surgeons must be doing this cost containment---- reusing Hernia Meshes from one patient to another, Surgical Sutures (the remnant threads reused on other patients), Scopes/ instruments without proper sterilisation and many other such short cuts, to save more money from the package for themselves. Its unethical and inhuman to resort to such practices! At times, when tragedy befalls us, we are flabbergasted that I was so clean and white, why it happened to me. We are sinning somewhere that in our arrogance, we overlook. We keep letting hell loose and then when it comes back to us, we cry. We have to introspect intensively---- keep looking for faults within us, sieving them away, just as a village woman blows away chaff from wheat grains by tossing them up in the air and synchronously blowing high pressure through her lips---- the wheat grains fall back into that straw device, while chaff is blown away------ we exactly need to practice that. Hell and heaven are both here only, not up in blue skies.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 04:31:58 +0000
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