For the past three weeks, I have made a series of harrowing visits to various hospitals. My breathlessness has taken the form of allergic asthma, I have been told. Even as I write this, I am going in for a laryngoscopy.
I am now in Kolkata – the city where I was born. Where we return annually for Durga Puja, to post happy pictures on Facebook, to stuff our faces with phuchkas, cakes from Flury’s, to buy expensive Jamdani sarees, and to cruise by the filthy waters of the Ganges. The only saving grace –the romance of the setting sun takes away some of the grime.
I write this article not just as someone who feels deeply let down by the state of health services in the city, but by the state itself.
Down and Out
I am admitted at Fortis, Kolkata, considered to be one of the best super speciality hospitals: on night one I was rushed there, in the throes of a deadly spasm, only to be met by a rather burly lady doctor, who, after giving me the usual nebuliser and a chest X-Ray, asks me whether I want admission, because unless I am likely to “pop it”, I must clear out, pronto.
The attack can kill you, as those of you familiar with asthma would know. I was scared to leave right then, wanting to feel better. But the lady doctor kept asking me to decide. The hospital, as we later discover, allows us to spend up to four hours in the ER for a sum of Rs 1,200. Then why the constant pressure?
Kill Pill
At one point, my mother, a 66-year-old heart patient, had to run around with my uncle’s driver to buy medicines from the pharmacy – the one on the ground floor of the hospital had shut because it was way past their bedtime (midnight).
She then rushed to the second-floor pharmacy, where the pharmacists were found snoring, and needed to be woken up. Meanwhile, the doctor continued to ask me if I wished to stay.
This time, I snapped, “Look, I know the emergency room is for critical patients, and I’m sorry I am not suffering a heart failure or about to die on you, but no one rushes to the ER if they were hunky dory. Besides, my mother has to reimburse the medicines you used (an archaic ER practice that can easily be changed to patients being charged for whatever medicines/injections used for them to save them the harassment).”
I suddenly began to hear whispers that the next day was a trade union bandh and doctors would be hard to find – as rare as taxis and buses. Violence is expected.
The Return
Two days later, I was back again. The first thing I encountered was a visibly irate doctor, screaming his lungs out because some patient had been wheeled into the ER, which has no vacant bed. I suspect there were only about 15 and he looked like he’s going to have a stroke himself. Ma was told, “Daran (wait)”. The second most popular word in the Bengali dictionary, after, “cholbena (won’t work)”.
I got a great doctor though, Dr Rajarshi Banerjee, who was just back from AIIMS, had studied overseas, and came across as kind and patient. This was after another doctor, a friend’s friend, suggested I consult an ENT. I was asked to take steam inhalation. A really dirty sort of jar was asked to be sent. It looked like it had not been used in decades. I refused. The last thing I wanted was a mouth infection.
Why no steam inhaler? It costs just Rs 200. My local parlour here has five. Our travails began again with the billing procedure. Ma told me later, panting, that there was just one man at the counter, busy blabbering. They waited. I panicked I will be asked to get lost again. Then they were told to pay cash, only to be followed by the declaration that they don’t have loose change for Rs 1,000. Paying by card was another trauma, as the man disappeared to swipe it at another location. Medicines again needed to be reimbursed, from a pharmacy on the second floor. Why can’t the ER have a 24-hour drug store?
Don’t Hospitals Work in Shifts?
Last evening again, when I came to meet my ENT specialist, to fix an appointment for a laryngoscopy, I noticed how chaotic and badly managed the main hospital was. The receptionist was busy chatting on the landline, with no clue about my mother’s blood reports – who, incidentally, was also rushed to ER the night before, after she complained of heart ache with a high BP.
After I argued that we had received a call in the afternoon about her reports, a hospital executive told us nonchalantly that we go to the fourth floor and get the X-ray plate ourselves. He also told us to ask about the blood reports at the ground floor, all the while complaining about how he was running late to go home. For your information, my mother’s 12k ER bill was already settled.
I decided to fight, despite being advised to rest, not wanting to miss my appointment. I got my work done, arguing there needed to be more staff and a proper line. We waited outside the ENT’s chamber for almost half-hour after our appointment time, while a nurse snuck in her relatives. There was no space for patients to sit.
Soon after dad was directed to book the endoscopy room on the ground floor. He found no one. “Come tomorrow after ten,” he was told. He finally got someone to at least enter my name, and fix an appointment in the register.
This morning my distressed father called frantically to confirm the booking. No one had a clue. I then called the ENT specialist.
No Hope in Hell
I love my hometown. I defend it when fellow Bongs outside my home state bitch about it shamelessly. I cringe when it’s called the “lockout” capital. But, a part of me wonders if there is some merit to it. Especially, when on the way back home last night, we couldn’t enter our locality, the entry blocked due to a Janmasthami mela.
In a state where the youth are jobless, ERs understaffed, where billing counters and waiting rooms are ill equipped, students and professionals are disillusioned and eke out a living outside, a trade union strike paralyses the common man grappling with a voiceless fear of violence – where is my beloved Kolkata of yore?
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