Mary Ebenezer

The frail old man on the next bed passed away despite the last-ditch efforts of at least four doctors and even more nurses. It was hall 201, the emergency ward, Government General Hospital. By the evening my cousin was transferred to 111, the Male ward. We had to shift him on a wheel chair, the attendant who helped us shift smiled only after I was poorer by 50 rupees. When he left I realized, I was standing beside a board that read "Bribery is a crime, please report acts of bribery to ..”

The next day morning, the doctor on duty prescribed a flurry of tests which included blood tests at three different places, a cranial CT scan and a bladder scan. The blood tests took a lot of time, there were at least 25 people at each counter, and I was almost alone amongst the mostly female queue, each of them holding at least two tubes of brick red blood.

When I reached the counter for the CT scan, the man at the counter was deep asleep on his PC's black keyboard. At least 10 minutes passed before he woke up with a yawn and asked me check out the timings for the scan with the lab. The lab is the last room inside a building that resembles a haunted house, with hanging wires, battered walls and a half lit verandah, I could hear my heart beat every time I walked to the lab alone.

A middle aged woman was lying on the floor in a night gown in front of the lab; another woman sat crouching on the floor beside her. A dark Lab attendant was howling “If you talk rules once again, you will never have your scan done". The crouching woman mumbled she had been waiting for over an hour beside her sister who needed a pelvic CT scan. A younger woman was holding a few months old child in her hands, the child's head was completely dressed on one side. Two more middle aged women sat with their teen aged children. We were asked to be at the Lab at 07.30pm that evening.

The next day morning, the post graduate student-duty doctor wanted the CT scan results, but the results were only to be available in the evening. My brother was refused the report by the same dark attendant. Armed with a written request from the doctor he went to the lab again for the scan and the reports, this time he was offered both but the report was priced at 100 rupees. When he came back he only had the scan in hand.

I was sleeping on a chair that night because my brother was with my cousin, somewhere through the night a soft pair of hands woke me up. It was the nurse on duty and I wasn't supposed to be on the visitor’s chair in the nights. Through the nights not more than one individual is allowed to attend to the patients, But Mary Ebenezer allowed me sleep inside the ward that night. Again we were alone with only women; most of them middle aged, attending to the patients, some of them stayed awake through out the night.

On the fourth day my cousin had uninterrupted attention of at least 5 doctors and 15 doctors to be. It was the Pharmacology practical examination for the final year students. Most of the patients were immobile, gaunt and almost giving me a nausea. An hour of staying beside my cousin had the better of me, I was soon talking to a few of the frail old men. Every time a 'doctor to be' was beside I had to answer a pile load of questions while he/she filled 4 to 5 sheets of paper. The doctors were almost indifferent to the patients whilst they examined the 'cases' and evaluated the students.

On the fifth day an older man beside my cousin's bed passed away, it was a lot better I thought because he needed tubes for almost everything. His wife, who had earlier stopped her son from donating blood to his own father with a stone face, was now in tears and noise. She paused for a moment, when she saw me smiling at her, before continuing with her wail.

On the sixth day my cousin was discharged from the hospital as his legs had found some movement and more importantly there was a dearth of the available beds. I wished our neighbors a fast recovery and as I was leaving, I saw the ever smiling Ebenezer walk inside the ward for her night shift. For some reason I said "See you Madam".

"Don't ever say 'see you' when you leave a hospital, always say goodbye, Now good bye, I have people to look after" she retorted.

Before I could bid her bye she was already walking away trying to silence the noise inside the ward. For the first time in almost a week I had a smile on my face.