A patient posted for surgery is asked to ‘report’ at 11.00 am, the day before. Expecting a smooth sail into the pre-booked, paid-for room, he, along with his wife arrives early and proceeds to the main reception. From there he’s directed to the concerned department’s OP Counter.
At the OP Counter, there are a few people to meet, sign multiple forms, and make some payments. From there, he’s asked to do a set of tests: First a blood test. But not before going to the Cardiac department for some checks, and other papers to be signed, and then some more ‘small change’ to be paid. From the blood test, to x-ray department.
(Standing at the lobby of a modern hospital, large crowds of people walk in, and out, guided by numerous staff. The scene is very similar to waiting in front of a railway station close to the time of an arrival and departure - where passengers with luggage in tow come out like when a tap has just been turned on; or rush in, in batches. The difference - here one set of people exit the hospital with relief writ large of their faces, and new hopes for a new phase in life; while another set enters the hospital with prayers on their lips, looking at an uncertain future. What is common - bags, trolleys, documents and some to get admitted and some to see off).
In between patients, relatives, bystanders and doctors-nurses-staff, some are either walking back from the Coffee Shop with cups of Coffee, or wiping stains of tea from their face; others are finding their way to the shop. Machines brewing coffee and tea can be heard along side chatter and the occasional laughter. While all this happens, a set of four blind musicians are reeling off classic Malayalam film songs using a combination of a soft flute, a well-tuned violin, the rhythmic tabala, and the age old harmonica. This certainly soothes tight nerves and tired minds.
An hour later, the x-ray taken, the patient is to meet with the anaesthetic doctor. But with him gone for lunch, we all go to the star-rated restaurant inside the hospital, for much needed food.
Almost all of the 40-something tables are occupied. We stand in a queue, witnessing a festive atmosphere of conversations and laughter, and hearing the clinking of cutlery even as orders being followed up at the kitchen counter. Waiting for a table with the aroma of biryani cooked in spices, fish curry flavoured with coconut milk, and of various dishes, is not at all easy; it is indeed stressful.
Post lunch, in front of the anaesthetic doctor’s consulting room, we’re told he’s yet to come.
Meanwhile, the area being in front of the Operation Theatre ‘Complex’, dozens of people await information and updates from the concerned doctors. A TV screen displays about 17 surgeries going on parallel to each other. This includes old people, the middle aged, young, and everyone from toddlers to teenagers. Some of them waiting have been forced to sleep just here because technically, a patient once taken for surgery “has vacated the room” and the room is no longer available for even the bystander. Now unless the patient is “released” from the post operative ward to “an available” room, bystanders either have to book and take a hotel-like-room at a separate block, or just stay put in front of the ‘Complex’. The ‘Complex’ has numerous rooms the size of mini-halls at a hotel convention centre - well carpeted, appointed and kept cool with the central air conditioning system.
An hour passes by and the patient’s name is called; it’s his turn. The consultation lasted all of five minutes. From here, he is directed to the ‘Admissions’ department (to get admitted!). It’s nearly half past four!!
As the patient posted for surgery the next day gets to the ‘Admissions’ department, another set of forms are spread out before him for filling and signing. In the minutes that passed by, the executive attending us had his phone ringing constantly. Yet another set of forms required signature. An identity card is cross-checked, a negative Covid RT-PCR certificate is asked for. But they need either a hard copy, or, a soft copy had to be mailed to them.
Our eyes collectively tired from the day’s walking about, now had the perfect eye-popping moment - a billions of blue blistering barnicles and thundering typhoons moment! The email id to have this negative Covid certificate sent: admissions.asterkochi@astermedicity.com ... all this to be sent from a mobile phone. Touch or push, there couldn’t have been a more cumbersome process in the “system” established to treat us well. “Do you have a longer email id”, I asked. To which the straight-faced reply: “Sorry sir, this is the email id we have been given”!
This also done (imagine typing an email ID as long as this on a phone at the end of the day, and realising the 3rd letter was wrong), now comes the sledgehammer-hit-on-the-head moment: at nearly 5pm, a room for the patient who’s slated for surgery the next day, is not ready yet. Worse, it will take about an hour more!
The patient, patient now loses it. “Rooms have not got vacant or has not been cleaned and sanitized yet” - the helpless, poker-faced young, clean shaven, ‘chocolate boy’ executive clad in a tie to match his grey shirt, tells us. And an advise: “Sir you are the one who has to go through a surgery tomorrow, don’t get tense ... relax”! Was that audacity, or?
His colleague meanwhile on the neighbouring desk, is surrounded by another patient and bystanders. She pretended to answering their questions politely, and at the same time took instructions from her boss looking over her shoulders... and, was also speaking on the phone to another irate customer (patient)!
Twenty minutes later however, the call came. A friendly member of staff, after gulping three glasses of water (she just finished escorting yet another patient to the respective room), took the patient to his room.
Finally, the pre-surgery ordeal that began at 1045, nearly came to and end a little after 0515 pm. Almost 7 hours after setting foot on the gorgeous marble and granite floor of the Aster Medicity, a patient slotted for a major surgery the next day, finally gets his bed to “rest and now, prepare”.
While coming off, I couldn’t help but catch sight of the branding on one of the walls, which had one ‘L’ missing from the word ‘well’.
That missing alphabet was perhaps, the gap between being treated well and otherwise. Or was it an intentional miss?
Under the garb of ‘systems in place’, should hospitals make patients, particularly those slotted for surgery, run through the maze of their systems?