satire: Injury in left eye- surgery in right

  

 

You must have seen how cabbies, and other public transport guys call/invite/persuade/coax you to take a ride in their vehicle at the intersections, bus stands and Railway stations. They almost forcibly pull you in their tempo/rickshaw etc. The driver agrees to whatever you say. Even if he is not going on that route, he says yes to you and then takes you off to the nearest location, saying your destination is close by. Then you know what? Your destination is still another rickshaw ride away and you will have to hire another rickshaw.

 

Similarly, so many nursing homes have now opened in every city, that are admitting ‘patients’ at the slightest pretext. They are luring future patients by bringing various packages/schemes. The advertisements of two things had never been seen in past. One, school/university and another of hospitals. Now the full-page ads of both of them appear in National dailies. Just wait there will soon be 'Buy one-get one free' scheme on the face of throat cut competition literally. The diseases are fewer and doctors far more. Even if you got the headache, the doctor is ready for the operation by opening your head. If you say there is pain in the hands and feet, they will scare you so much that you are gladly ready to be admitted for your ultra-sound, blood test, eco test, urine test, X-ray and if possible, MRI too.

 

In one such case, when a seven-year-old child's eyes turned red and began aching, child was rushed to the nearest clinic by his parents. Dr. armed with blossoming smile welcomed the new found customer. Dr. successfully scared the child's parents that a piece of plastic had gone into the child's eye and that it could only be removed by surgery. The fee will be forty-five thousand rupees. Somehow with great difficulty poor parents raised the money.  Dr. came out of OT like Hindi films’ fake doctor and announced; "Congratulations! The operation was successful child will come out of anaesthesia then you can go home with the kid” The real game began when parents saw that the pain was in the left eye and Dr. too explained about ‘plastic piece’ being there in the left eye, why on earth this bandage was on the right eye. Child was taken home, next day child developed allergy. Rashes appeared all over the body. The distressed parents fled to ‘another hospital…another Dr.’ who declared there was no surgery at all of the left eye. Hearing this their patience ran out. They went to the ‘old’ hospital and created a ruckus. The CMD (not Chief Medical Director but Chairman & Managing Director) pacified parents by explaining “due to the negligence of the nursing staff, the bandage has been put on the wrong eye. In fact, there was no surgical operation. The so-called piece of plastic that was glued to the eye was removed. That was the ‘only’ operation carried out. The child's health has not been good since then. Parents wondered why the hell was kid given anaesthesia that too General, when there was no surgery?

 

So, this is a competitive world. May you survive this harsh worldly journey. Here the merchants are after your blood, kidneys, lungs, liver eyes what have you. These merchants often wear uniform, masks, wear white coats and surgical gloves. I do not know how many such stories are daily shaping all around us. Now if you have to meet the target, you want to save your job, then you will have to do all this. The time has come to amend the Hippocratic oath. "... I will chop off whoever comes under my knife…and pick his pocket without any discrimination, compassion, melody and malice... May God help me with this"