Sunday, June 12, 2011

A Visit to hospital !!

                        Recently I had a chance of visiting a famous hospital in my home town with my friend. I was well acquainted with the name of the hospital through several ads and hence I entered it with huge expectation of hospitality. I parked my bike in the parking area and walked through the gates of the hospital. The infrastructure of that hospital reminded me of some corporate company. Once we entered the hospital there was a big reception area. As we were new to that hospital we just went straight to the reception desk and enquired  about the token system and the timings for consultation. The woman seated there just threw a slip and asked us to fill it up. It was with many medical jargon asking details of the previous visit and some allergic drugs  that a common man wouldn't understand for sure. Seeing the face of the women we concluded that we could get no more assistance from her. We sought the help of a old man and he helped us in filling it out. He also said that he too struggled at the first time he came to that hospital. It brought us a relief because we thought only we were treated in a barbaric way. My first expectation of the hospitality shown in that ad went off !!

       We were called by that lady for registering our name for the token and she said we will be called after 8 people. We went to the reception and waited patiently for more than an hour. After that long wait I went to enquire that lady how long should we wait since my friend couldn't sit there for a long time with heavy fever. She just looked at my friend like some unliving thing and asked us to wait for some more time. As we were waiting, a car came into the restricted area and dropped a girl of teenage. She looked fine and I thought may be she might have come to meet someone there. She said a 'hi' to the lady at the reception desk and spoke to her for a minute. Then she came straight to the place where the patients have been waiting and sat in a corner. Some time later she took her good looking new mobile and started calling  her friend. She spoke as though she is the only girl in that whole area and laughed all through her conversation. A baby was crying with high cough and those sounds never went into her ears. She continued talking and the lady incharge who has to restrict such non sense inside the hospital seems to do nothing. 8th token was called and we waited eagerly for our turn as it happened to be the next.


             When the LED screen flashed our token number we just got up from our place and went near the consulting room. There we were stopped from entering the room and the girl who was disturbing all the way went in. We were shocked and we went straight to that lady and argued with her for a long time. A man there came and consoled us saying , the girl who entered before us was doctor's relative and she came to give doctor an invitation and she will be out soon. We waited and waited and finally an hour passed. The girl came out and we were let in. We thought of making a note of this nuisance happening outside the hospital to the doctor. We told the thing happened out and told how irritating it would be for the patients to wait outside with lots of trouble and asked him to keep his personal things out of the hospital. The doctor being a good man asked those things with calm and cool head assured that it wont happen again and he regretted for all. Then we understood from him that he has ordered the hospital people not to allow his relatives to meet him or to give priority to the people known to him and it is the people working there doing all sorts of non sense just to get close to his relatives for their own welfare.

We went out getting treated. We went to the medical store nearby and there the medical store people were arguing with a old man. After getting the medicine, we called that old man and asked what has happened. We were taken back hearing it. The old man came for the treatment of peptic ulcer and the doctor prescribed him with some medicine. As those medicines were not available in the store, the pharmacist working there gave some other equivalent drug which was allergic in nature to him. Now his peptic ulcer is aggravated and he is undergoing intense treatment !!

When I came home after these...the ad flashed on my TV "......excellent hospitality,world class facilities,best in the country....", for the very same hospital !!

The thing is if at all a company or a hospital have to reach out to the hearts of the people..ads are not the only way. There are lot other thing one might expect !! Especially some dignity towards people in these kind of public oriented services !!