As
a child, I did not choose to arrive in the world. I was rather planned because
a child is one who completes a family, who is a bliss for the household and whose
arrival marks the transformation of two partners into parents. It took about
nine months for nature to convert me from a zygote into a fetus. Womb of my
mother was embarked as a nurturing platform for me where I was entitled to
receive all the basic necessities and ‘infrastructure’ for my construction into
a human being. I was getting oxygen, blood, fluids and nutrients for the
development of vital organs, flesh and bones, all by a complex and
mind-boggling mechanism, without any cost at all – or may be just at the cost
of my mother being sick and in pain for a few months. But as soon as I was
exposed out of the beautiful, bountiful and magnanimous territory of mother’s
womb, I was baffled to know that my father is out there at the admission office
of this private hospital and paying fifty thousand rupees just to get me out
from a place where I have been getting all the luxuries for free. I cried
immediately after I was delivered and handled by an obstetrician.
They
say a child is normal if he/she cries right after the birth, true that, but why
does the child cry at birth is a question that needs to be answered. Even Adam
and Eve kept on crying for good forty days when they were expelled from heavens
to earth because that had put a full stop on the uncountable luxuries they were
getting for absolutely nothing, and now they had to make an effort to earn the
basic necessities, let alone the luxuries. I, too was expelled from my heaven
into a place they call the ‘world’, even the first sight of which was so scary
that it made me close my eyes and cry inconsolably.
On
one hand my father was getting his wallet shrunken over my pampers, clothes,
cradle and all the other things that were necessary for me to survive in an
alien world, while on the other hand he also had to pay whenever my blood
samples were taken, he had to pay every time my fragile skin was pricked with a
needle, he had to pay for knowing what my blood group is. The only two
constituents that were available for free were air and mother’s milk, thank
heavens both of these were not under the control of hospitalists, although I
could hear out one newborn in the neonatal ward who was born with premature
lungs and had to be intubated – the price of each molecule of oxygen being
delivered to the baby was being charged. As I was growing, I was being
frequently called to get vaccinated against some of the deadliest diseases, of
course in exchange of some bucks. By this time I started to realize that
staying healthy was a business deal, invest with money and you get your license
to health. This, however, was one side of the coin, being unhealthy was also
charged, and for a lot more.
Seasons
passed by year after year, different phases of life elapsed, from an infant to
boy to adolescent to man, from circumcision to routine fall from the stairs,
from wasp bite to falling from bicycle, from seasonal flu to acute
gastroenteritis, frequent visits to the hospitals were made in order to
repurchase health. People around me developed comorbidities like diabetes,
hypertension, heart issues and a few other technical entities, and were put on
lifelong medications, sometimes expensive, that had to be taken regularly with
frequent follow up visits. I developed atherosclerosis, (narrowing of blood
vessels due to accumulation of lipids) thanks to the fatty content of food in
my part of the world. I belonged to a middle class, hand to mouth family. After
the demise of my father who himself was a self-made person, I carried on with
my government job until the age of retirement which is 60 years. In the
meantime, I fulfilled my responsibilities as a father by providing my children
with all the comforts, sending them to top universities and getting them
married in the most lavishing manner. Such was the weight of paternal
obligations that I even forgot to worry about my own health insurance.
Hospital
charges were multiplying day by day. It was the 3rd week of
hospitalization after an attack of stroke which lead to massive brain
hemorrhage. I was in a deep state of coma. All different sorts of machines were
at least keeping my breaths alive. Prognosis at the age of 75 is not too
reassuring but many people recover with the advancement of science and
technology. If the charges of 3 weeks were not daunting enough for my children
and the little savings that I had, the neurosurgical intervention as a final
life-saving option was definitely out of reach for us. How conveniently my
children were asked to take me to some other hospital as they were not able to
bear the expenses anymore. To be precise, if you can’t afford to live, you will
not be seen and saved by the doctor.
Why
one should pay if he gets sick? Has he done it on purpose? Is he getting
gratification by being in pain? Is the doctor doing any favor by treating a
patient? Does is not come under his professional duty? Isn’t humanity mightier
than some pieces of paper? Should those who cannot afford to bear the expenses
of surgical procedures of life threatening conditions be allowed to die? Where
goes the Hippocratic Oath when a patient is in emergency, dying of abdominal
trauma leading to internal bleed and you are not starting emergency laparotomy
just because the patient is non-affording? How merciless can you get? Doctors
were once known as the Messiah’s, who would bear and relieve the pain of those
in pain, but now with the commercialization of health and development of
private set ups, the whole system of health care providing has become no less
than a devil’s workshop, where everyone involved is making merry with the money
of those in pain.
