As children of the early 1940s, we had no choice for medical treatments. If injured, I used to run down to a doctor who lived two houses down the road. He used to chide me while cleaning the wound and applying tincture of iodine. I would be busy thinking of the game I had missed or what my friends were up to in my absence.
By late 1960s, the doctor required blood and urine tests and X-rays, conducted at the attached labs. You spend two days in organising all these tests and collecting the results and fixing an appointment with the doctor. These take a day or two more!
At the end, you are a well-organised documented patient. In my case, I became a number on a big fat file. Patients like me, however, were likely to lose track of their original ailment.
The cost of such running around is nowadays borne by your insurance companies, which again prefer that you remain a number!
Unfortunately, most large industries have highly qualified and experienced doctors on their rolls. For them too, the patient is a number. Hence, patients are often treated for ailments they do not have. I was treated for TB in the 1980s and given 16 injections out of the 21 prescribed and then it was stopped when my local doctor and nurse protested. It was later found out that the 21 injections were prescribed for the patient whose name was next on the register. I walked out alive from the system that made a mockery of the noble profession.
At this time, it will be appropriate to quote a dental surgeon who as a student in Mumbai was told by her professor that anyone who enters her clinic remains a patient for life! To an extent, this was ensured by my dentist!
In 1980, I found it very painful to climb even four or five steps. A specialist doctor in Madras advised immediate operation followed by three or four weeks of rest. I, however, could not extend my leave and decided to return to Zambia. So my sister-in-law came up with her own remedy. She asked me to continue it for a few weeks and later on whenever possible. I avoided the staircase, and within a fortnight, I began to go up the steps to the third or fourth floor without any problem. I found that for the treatment to be successful, you must have full faith in it.
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