Move away from corporate hospitals

When you turn 57 and move towards the next day, a system that lasted alongside for equal time could begin to send signals. The wild, the adventurous, oversee a calendar at their own risk. All machines have a lifetime. Some stand by the warranty, some outlast, some succumb.

A day after I touched seven and fifty, nature knocked. Knocked rudely. Shifted within hours of an unprecedented bout of viral gastro enteritis, I found myself in a hospital consuming bucket-litres of intravenous medicines. Call it restraint, inhibition or emotional predicament I moved to a middle level nursing home at Gandhi Nagar. Simply put into the task and medical supervision, the long but sure journey to recovery started. I took the skeptical choiceless route. In an unprecedented move of over a 130 discharges – oral, anal I was impressed by doctors hovering around with concern, readymade solutions with no reference to fiscal pulsations. The journey was long, tiresome, unbelievably sapping the energy sources but backed by a team radiant with hope, concern, preparedness and needless to mention medical acumen. There was in the 8-day sojourn in the hospital, the need to shift me to a corporate hospital, my wife (Dr. Sita) put her foot down. Hours later with normalcy restored and no dagger in the pocket, I was on the road to recovery.

Is this the road less travelled? It raised the issue of an alarming societal urgency to head towards Style Centres for medical facilities. With insurance companies playing a major role, there is an increasing tendency nay fashion to be in luxury hotels with medical backup. I refused the outswingers. The time to renew our approach and emphases to medical treatment has arrived. The madness towards corporate hospitals places gloss over content, process over product. An entire middle class has naively succumbed to the overkill marketing skills of Super Speciality Corporate Medical Centres. The breed is growing. Tucked away in colonies are mid-sized nursing homes that strain and make the best effort to deliver what is necessary and in anyway what is promised. Eashwar Lakshmi Nursing Home at Gandhi Nagar proved my Church, my Temple, my Mosque. Seven days of continuous intravenous inflows, a trip to the ICCU and a 140 motions I type these lines in salutation to professionals above commerce.

I owe my life to Dr. Jha (Physician), Dr. Saroj (Anesthesiologist), Dr. Bipin Sethi (Endocrinologist), Dr. Gita Sharma (Micro Biologist), Dr. Aditi Narke, Dr. Mahender Reddy and unbelievable Physician Dr.Srinivasan for railing me back on course. The para-medical staff gave me the feeling that they were more products of a boy-scout training camp than just the para-medical training school. Can a Mahatma respecting country take small steps of seeming retroactivity towards simplicity and humility even if it dramatically sounds to be at the cost of our lives. Big insurance companies, bigger corporate platforms of therapy are a poor alternative. If I have to go through it all again, I will still go the same road. Can we a collective India revisit our premise of equating medical attention with pricing?

Like Eashwar Lakshmi in Gandhi Nagar and the enthusiastic Dr. Radhe Shyam Tapadia, there are other mid sized nursing homes manned by concern, run with the commitment to the Hippocratic Oath, let us encourage them. Not to their advantage, for our wellbeing.

Thanks docs you have given me at the threshold of 57 new beacon lights, new lampposts. Never mind that the wattage at your milestones are not too bright. They lead. That is all that matters.

L. Ravichander.