MY PATIENT'S FATHER
| By : P V RAMANA ( Posted on :04 Dec, 2005 ) | Total Views : 503 | Previous | Next |
The Ghat road passing through deep jungles on the way from Koraput to Visakhapatnam (Vizag) is dotted with hamlets inhabited by tribal living in harmony with nature. Medical facilities are not easily available unless they travel to the nearest town primary health centers through forest paths carrying the sick on a cot (make shift stretcher). Usually the literate or patients from small towns who have relatives at Vizag come here for specialized treatment.
Kudos to our marketing wizards, a family of four landed up at our hospital one night. The father and mother were holding a thin boy of nineteen years in their rough, weather beaten arms. The younger sister was hiding behind the mother’s sari awed by the hospital. The troubled little group radiated innocence, pain and poverty. The boy was shifted to Neuro ICU immediately. He was unconscious for fifteen days and also malnourished due to vomiting and dehydration. Prior to becoming unconscious he was having headache and fever. The boy was diagnosed as raised intra-cranial pressure. I called aside the boy’s father and spoke to him in Oriya. I told him that his son needed a CT Scan first and later he may require surgery. Father asked me to go ahead with the treatment and not to worry about expenses, as he had brought five thousand rupees with him.
The answer grounded me. The expenses may run up to more than ten times the amount. This was explained to father of the boy. We gave him the other option of shifting him to the government general hospital for continuing treatment. The family members became annoyed and wept. They did not agree and I had to give up persuading them. Giving up I requested the scan center to do free a CT scan of the brain. The scan confirmed hydrocephalus; a condition that required surgery .He needed a shunt tube to be put from the brain to the abdomen. The hospital administration obliged to treat the patient in the general ward free of cost. Doctors donated drugs the boy needed; other patient’s attendants and relatives helped them by giving them food and moral support in spite of language barrier. The boy was operated upon and he made remarkable fast recovery. Even before a week passed, he was eating by himself and walking around the ward. He started gaining weight.
All these happenings gave me a real “feel good” and appreciation from others. But the patient’s father was stone-faced with no expression of happiness nor did he offer thanks. This attitude troubled me throughout their stay in the hospital.
On the day of discharge I couldn’t resist asking him if he should be thankful to all us for putting his son back on his feet again and almost free of cost in a corporate hospital. He was surprised and asked why should he? The purpose of bringing him here was this and why thanks? Otherwise he would have not taken all the pains to shift him here. He sold all his land for five thousand, and braved venturing into an unknown city. Other than his hamlet the only place he had ever visited is the weekly” “haat” (fair) near his village to sell the forest products he collected the whole week. He wanted to save his child and that alone made him venture into a big city. The halo around me crumbled.
My contribution did not seem too much compared to travails he underwent for his boy. After all this I felt some of the elation leaving me, but I still felt like laughing.
Dr P V Ramana
Neurosurgeon
Written By : P V RAMANA
True Happenings
