It was yet another hectic Thursday. Surgery clinical posting and Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) Bio-statistics tutorial were more than enough to get me exhausted. I was so tired that when I came back to my room at around 4:00 pm, I immediately fell on my bed, only to wake up for dinner. Having finished my dinner and the post-dinner walk, I came back to my room again. I knew it was going to be a tough night as I had already slept so much. Somehow, I opened my PSM textbook and started reading about demography. As I was least interested in it, I could not stretch it anymore.
It had been 20 days since I was posted in the surgery department. By then, I had grown enough interest in surgery and so I opened my notes and had a look at a case of Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD) that I had jotted down a few days back. But, I was missing focus. I got off my chair & knocked at the door of my friend’s room. Luckily, she was awake. It was 10:00 pm and I asked her if she would like to accompany me to the casualty and trauma center to which she agreed.
We were not sure if the guard would allow us to go at that time, but to my great surprise, she didn’t react at all. Might be she might have thought us to be interns.
We stepped out of the hostel. It was rainy season, the sky was dark and I could hardly appreciate any stars. It was the day of EID and I was curiously searching for the “EID ka Chaand”, but all my efforts went in vain.
As we moved a little, I could see a lot of crowd near the Post-Mortem (PM) room. A dead body had come for PM and the faces of the people scared me a lot; though I was unaware that there was a lot more to scare me at the casualty.
I held my friend’s hand tightly and we kept on moving.
As we were about to reach the trauma center, I could see a 108 van and I got more curious & excited about learning and knowing new things tonight as I had never been to casualty at night before.
As we went near, I could appreciate the chaos of people. Plethora of activities was going on but one lady grasped my attention. She was quite old, might be my grandmother’s age. Her look was exhausted. She was wearing a green-colored saree in Gujarati style with her head covered. She was crying; rather shouting. I could notice that she was abusing someone continuously. She came near me and asked me to save her husband; she might have misunderstood me to be a doctor. I directed her towards the Emergency Room (ER) and had a look at her husband on the stretcher. He was all sweaty and breathless with severe chest pain. I thought it to be a case of Myocardial Infarction (MI). The doctor in the ER took the charge and asked for some history and finally started with oxygenation. He then gave him anti-anxiety and anti-platelet drugs. I didn’t ask him more questions, as I thought I would disturb him.
Then there was another patient in ER. She had an attack of Hemiplegia. Sir asked us if we could insert Ryle’s Tube(RT) and Catheter in the patient and we agreed. As the patient had had a paralytic attack, it was difficult for us to insert RT. Her son standing nearby assumed that doctors there were not skilled enough to cure his mother and asked if he could take her to the private hospital. The doctor-in-charge took his sign and allowed him to take his mother.
Patients kept on coming and we got engorged in that. All of a sudden, I could feel a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, the old lady in green saree wrapped me around her arms and started crying and shouting.
She continuously kept on saying “બધું એના લીધે જ થયું છે. એને મારા પરિવાર નું વિનાશ કરી દીધું. (She is responsible for everything. She has ruined my family)”.
I gave her a glass of water. The doctor asked me to leave her and focus on other patients but I could not resist. That had happened to me for the first time. I took her aside and asked her to calm down. All that while, I was worried about her husband. I went to see him and by god’s grace, he was stable now. I tried to calm her and told her that her husband is stable now. But she again kept on repeating the same words…”બધું એના લીધે જ થયું છે” (She is responsible for everything)
As I was about to leave, she held my hand and started saying something. It took me some time to understand her language.
[All the conversations from here on are translated in English]
I: What happened?
She: She is the culprit
I: Who?
She: My granddaughter-in-law. She again gave birth to a girl child.
The world came to a stand-still for me. All I could see was the old lady, her messed-up hair, her crying eyes and her lips whispering something. I was not sure how to react. Before I could explain to her that it’s the father who is responsible for the gender of the child, she told me that her granddaughter-in-law had a vaginal delivery at home. They had not taken her to the hospital thinking that the previous 2 deliveries that had happened at hospital turned out to be baby girls.
I was shattered at the level of illiteracy in my country and could then understand the reason behind a Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of around 140 in India.
I: How is your granddaughter-in-law?
She: She was doing drama of having severe pain, so my grandson has taken her to first floor.
I went upstairs to the Labor Room (LR). I inquired with the nurse about any such patient and she pointed her finger towards the patient. As I looked at her, I felt so pity. She was so pale, under-nourished, poorly built and mentally depressed. She had suffered from vaginal tear and the obstetrics-gynaecology resident was taking sutures. He explained to me that it was a case of Post Partum Hemorrhage (PPH) and asked certain questions regarding the management.
Sir finished the stuff and switched over to another patient, but I stayed there only.
“Congratulations!”, I said, to cheer her up. And there she busted out, unable to control her tears. She was a commerce graduate and had a love marriage. She told me that her husband really loved her but her in-laws were continuously cursing her for giving birth to 3rd female child.
I was listening to her patiently and then all of a sudden, a lady came shouting to the LR. I could find out that it was the same old lady.
“Did you see sister?”, she addressed me. “She is that misfortune to our family who has now given birth to another misfortune”, she added.
I was baffled. I had never heard any such words before in my life.
With tears in my eyes, I somehow gathered the strength and replied;
“Had my mother thought the same way, you would have not been talking to me here in this hospital with a stethoscope around my neck…”
Saying this, I left the LR and on my way out, I had a glimpse of that baby girl. I prayed to god for her and her family and headed towards the casualty.
