The kind of medical service one can expect HERE!!

Couple months ago I had complained of some blisters that formed on all over my body in a matter of an hour. It was possibly from a strange dust particle or some strange wild pollen or some leafy dust, whatever it is, I observed it has formed on my face, on other body parts as well. It was evening. By 8.30 I was in the hospital, Capital hospital, Bhubaneswar. (Unit VI) At the hospital there were 3 doctors attending the patients. SO I waited for a while for my term.

There was a guy who was there to get a medical certificate for his wife. The lady doctor says “No I can’t give such a certificate”. She did guess correctly, she will be in trouble if she writes a fake certificate. Then she changed her mind. She will be in trouble, more so, if she does not write this certificate. Apparently this guy comes there every morning and evening, as a husband, as an uncle, as a friend, as a mentor, as a service provider, this and that. And the doctors on duty know this. This guy is a hooligan and this is his employment. He gets the certificates etc for his clients, his clients pay him some. The doctor will not say NO if he or she is in his/her good senses.

So the lady wrote the certificate very gladly.

Then it was the turn of another patient who was attended. I see one doctor is still sitting there without a patient, SO, I ask him for treatment to my blisters. He says “come tomorrow”. I say why not tonight? “This is only for emergency, I can’t see you now”. And he was sitting idle, you thought. What kind of emergency? Well writing fake certificates so that some one somewhere can use that certificate to sanction his leave or some thing.

This is what medicals are for. And you thought we are medieval. We are actually super-modern. We can ask our teachers to take care of election day chores, the schools can go without the teachers. We are a bondage nation. Who rules us? Of-course the politicians, but mostly the party supremos. You think they do nothing to reach there??

SO I come back home, utterly disgusted because Government is paying these doctor chaps huge salary, these doctors are the ones that go on strike and protests if their demands are not fulfilled, but they don’t do their duty with a conscience except if a “goonda” is “at” service.

I come home and in 15 minutes my blisters have propagated severely to all over the body and this time the greenish blisters are prominent and all over the face, dangerously obvious.

SO I call somebody up, who keeps a list of all the good medicines by the name by his memory.

(My father used to remember medicines like this so we get the nice treatment if a doctor refuses service or if we are in a place where getting a service may be obstructive)

But this time it’s my brother in law. He proposed me some medication which is actually an anti-allergic for a kid. It worked wonders. (proof that I may be a kid at heart) In an hour everything had been subdued and it never came back again.

I can go on and on about the kind of medical service one avails in Odisha, but to no avail, I have other business to take care of.

(May be I am too frustrated to go through each and every experience to write them down, its possibly somebody else’s business)

You are paying these doctors a big amount as salary and compensation but they don’t care about their service. Proof? Read on.

So in the last one year I have been taking care of my physical body, reason: I have been diagnosed with diabetes. Well it used to be really bad until I saw sense, took a fully sensitive dietary measure and medical-science prescribed medications. This is where all our owes and sorrows begin. Our doctors, who the average person grew up thinking up as a God or a Godly savior has turned out to be a wuss.

Before I turn my attention to the one in my mind I come across another, again in my mind. I reach this doctors house-clinic  which is easily half an hour ride from home. I go there because the doctor has fixed that time in the morning. When I saw him in the morning he had asked me to come by 4’ clock. I reach 4’clock and he is ready to go for a stroll. SO he tells me to come back again. I told him this  “I can not come again, you either see me now or not, You are an educated person, keep a moral for other’s time”.

He says “did we fix a time?” I reminded him, I had come in the morning and he had asked me to come again. SO I rode for 45 minutes to come here.

(that makes it, 3 hrs a day wasted because I made two trips, for someone else’s whim, Can I spend that time towards someone else’s bizarre sense of keeping time??)

He did see me and prescribes me “Insulin”.  Amazing. I am not even sure it’s diabetes. I just discovered I have a high blood sugar because I was checking my blood for malarial fever . I come back and discover that insulin is for diabetes only when it’s reached a much severe level and you continue to take it for a life time.

(after much experience I discover that there may be exception, but think, it’s experience, you continue to discover)

I see that doctor again taking his 3 daughters on a scooter,  4 adults on a small motorized-bull. I say (in my head) “holy shit man” You have got to be a family person not a money making doctor type.

I went for the alternative. The Baba RamDev’s Patanjali medication, Ayurveda and so and so forth. I discover that since I am just developing the ailment rather than inherit the serious status even though blood sugar levels are mindbogglingly high, I can switch back to sense.

SO I did after a few months. But I discover that RamDev’s Ayurvedic  root and powders are more expensive than the medicine-science prescribed medications, wonder how they become billionaires?, I have also attended his Yoga Shiviras, for sitting in an open space which they get from the government for free?? You pay them literally thousands per person for that sitting space. What a sham. “Kya sham hai, sham hai suhana”

I know many more real Sadhus of India who never became rich or famous. Many. But liberalization has not only produced these Kalmadi and Raja and Lalit Modis but also RamDev and Agnivesh and many more ….Sai Baba was a pre-liberalization sham. “sham hai suhana”

SO I tested my blood in clinics close to home. When I checked that again at more sophisticated places because their scientific instruments and measurements were excellent, I discover that I had a 40 point less blood sugar than previously reported. What a sham, again, but how many people in this country really believe in medical science? We don’t because it’s expensive, but can’t the government make it accessible to every one in the country?? Social security, medi-care, health insurance etc. What a sham.

This Manmohan Singh government spends billions on building stadiums for sports thereby giving H-khors like Kalmadi chance to make billions out of that. Well he did not make that billion just from the CWG but from so many things over the decade. They always go up the ladder before they reach that heavenly height. OK we are on medical services.

SO after discovering that I have less blood sugar score than reported earlier I continued to go to this one place for my regular check-ups. This God-man is ***. This bastard will charge you anything if he is let free. A greedy monster. He and his medical family have opened up a villa in Bhubaneswar which they make to work like a money making shop even if its a medical.

Nobody in this place will take a strong exception to these Pirates, at-least in Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar is literally filled with mafias of all kind. In all sectors. It’s a happy country out here.

(Some people will tell me, why do you go to this place or that place if you know this, first of all I don’t know all the details, they keep on pouring when you experience them, you go through all the pains of bearing this and then one fine day you decide I must at-least make some of it clear to others, if I don’t share, they don’t even know)

SO this guy takes an in-house test of all my body parts, don’t recall all the charge but about INR 2000 and I have done most of the tests twice. Then he keeps a record of you the first time you did this, in his computer, but he never opens that damn computer again. SO each time you go see him, you make sure you have all your prescriptions and documents with you and you make sure you ask anything you have in mind to him. I told you it’s a shop not a medical.

Mostly he will be talking to someone for half an hour about frivolous things before you intervene and ask him for checking your case up. I have been going there for about a year and for his medicines spent thousands of INR and it turns out some of the medicines he prescribes are considered sub-standard even for the  not so aware citizen of Odisha.

His medicines are available in his own shop but not elsewhere, NO where in Bhubaneswar or nearby places. You can scan all the medicine stores but will hardly get his prescribed medicines, which means you buy it from him, each time you visit it’s a thousand INR and you visit pretty much every month or couple months. In a year you end up paying him INR 16,000 for just telling you which medicines to take(and the medicines). What good? Because each time you ask him about your status he will give you vague answers.

Mostly he will make sure you buy a book written by him or make a repeated payment, I told you, he is concerned about making more INRs but not concerned about your well-being. Not a dime you pay him. This one time I made a payment of INR 200 towards the blood test and his service fee, come out, saw him again after 10 minutes, he asks me INR 200 again. I say “I already paid you”. He goes in, and says “yeah you paid me”. Take your chance and bluff may be you get some free bills.

SO this last time when I visited him, after the blood test he made me sit in his office for half an hour, because he was chatting with another person, about nothing, nothing regarding why a patient would visit you. At the counter they had charged me INR 150, for the blood test. Mind it, it’s only INR 70 at any sophisticated clinic even in Bhubaneswar. He used to charge INR 100 through out the year and just arbitrarily asks you to pay INR 150. After waiting for half an hour for nothing, in his office I signaled him for my turn.

He attends me and checks my report. My fasting sugar level is only 118, very normal, 6 points more than last times. My test after the breakfast during which I take his morning medicine is 206 points, 40 points more than previous time. SO I told him I could not take my lunch medicine yesterday. He bursts off, “Then don’t do the test”. I say “why not?” He says if you are irregular don’t do the test. I said “look, the fact is that we can be irregular, that is why we are taking tests, to keep a check, Or else I will take the medicine and sleep, why would I come here for the tests??”

SO he cools down and say “I mean take the test after a week” (I had experienced this before, taking two tests in a week, means paying him twice, he had done this before)

SO I said “OK please tell me why my fasting is normal but the “after the food” is not normal”. He says I can not interpret this, we need to take a test again. I say “I can interpret this, I am a scientist, on that he says, you may be a scientist but you are a fool in Biology”. This made me really angry.

(Son of a Gun, you get a degree in medicine that makes you know everything, so much so that you consider a scientist a fool)

He made a few other rusty remarks. “This is a biological system, not a mechanical system, blah blah blah”.

And I am paying him for such philosophy.

I said “look the fact is I have a normal fasting” He says its increased from last time. I say that’s only 6 points. The after food is 40 points. SO he again remarks “it’s a biological system, not a mechanical system” I thought what the fuck is a biological system. Mother fucker, this is my body, I have been experiencing this since last one year. Where on hell did you get your medical degree from.

(I thought that to myself, I don’t know what I thought, but I was bursting with anger)

I said “don’t say that” If it was my class I was going to give that SOG a lesson in mechanical body. Somehow I resisted. For nothing I am paying this guy so much.

Somehow you would think it’s a big deal. But it’s nothing. It’s a valid argument. You are taking my  money. Whether or not I take my medicine in time you tell me what I need to do if my fasting is normal , which is sign that most medicines are working except the after the breakfast medicine. That is why the after the breakfast blood sugar is much higher.

I said “this is common sense, the Glycinorm total 60 isn’t working” I missed only the lunch medicine yesterday but all other medicines are taken per the prescription. He again shots “blah blah…I am going to prescribe you higher dose, you will be responsible”

I am thinking or may be I said this “why should I be responsible, you are the one who is the doctor, you should know everything inside out, I am just asking a simple question, my fasting is normal, that means I am doing fine, my Glycinorm isn’t working”

In any case I was sure he is not serious with his service, what better reasons to chat with a person and neglect a patient who is waiting in front of you for half an hour.

He shots back “ I am not going to entertain you again …”

He was trying to threaten me. The fact that actually angered him was in front of that other patient who he was having a really good chat I asked him “why you are charging me INR 150 for a simple blood test, this is INR 70, outside” ,

“This is my establishment charge”, his answer.

Everyone has an establishment and he had been charging INR 100 towards a test (still INR 30 more than market price) and suddenly asks his folks to charge INR 150 towards blood test. There is no checks and bounds on these guys. Government or private these medical guys consider themselves above everything.

SO much so that some times aggrieved people want to deal with them with the physical logic. But nothing changes.

As long as educated people and Government  do not take a stern purview towards these not much will change on ground. (I still think it’s much more complicated than this, but what do we do??)

I told him “Neither am I going to entertain you”. I pulled my prescriptions and documents out of his hand and rushed out of the hospital. On the way back I am thinking how about the Government or a few inspired people go and drag this bastard out of his medicine shop and put a lock for a month. I am sure that will work wonders. To all the slacking doctors of the state.