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Omana is an employee of the
retail giant ‘Butterflies’. She is an
assistant storekeeper at the Butterflies
Hyper Market at Thembamood. Butterflies has outlets all over the state
and the one at Thembamood has been outperforming the rest for several years.
Omana had been experiencing
severe abdominal pain for almost a year. She had tried Abhaya Arishtam – an
Ayurvedic medicine – for a while. The pain did not subside. Her periods became an
ordeal. She consulted Dr. Sarala Sasidharan, Gynaecologist at the Vembanad
Hospital at Thembamood. Dr. Sarala had been tending her patients efficiently. After a number of tests and considerable
expenditure Dr. Sarala advised Omana that her
uterus had four fibroids. However it did not require intervention. The
abdominal pain she was encountering had nothing to do with the presence of
fibroids. Dr. Sarala concluded that there was nothing wrong with the patient. Though Omana went home happily the abdominal
pain survived the investigation and treatment vehemently.
The persisting illness had made her
life miserable and Omana had no other option than to report at the Jawahar
Medical College Hospital at Thembamood.
Thembamood happened to be the capital of the state and had the finest
medical facilities one could ever imagine. There was a rider. Though the
hospital was equipped with most modern equipments and a state of the art
laboratory nothing ever worked. The doctors were adamant that they considered
reports from their own facilities quite unreliable. Most of the doctors
insisted that the patients outsource the reports from private institutions
operating on the periphery. The doctors maintained
that they could rely on such outsourced reports alone. A wag had once commented
that there was the 30 percent factor. Naturally
the scarce resources the family could lay their hands upon had evaporated
within no time.
Omana went through all the tests
once again. The doctors found nothing wrong
except for the discovery of a spot on her small intestine which according to
them was insignificant. As Omana was experiencing acute pain they referred her
to the Deen Dayal Institute for Cancer at Thembamood. The doctors at the
institute refused to even examine her because according to them Omana was
suffering from an ailment that could be treated at the Jawahar Medical College
Hospital itself. It was back to square one.
The brother in law of Omana was a
well respected politician and he managed to invoke the intervention of the
Health Minister of the State on Omana’s behalf. It worked wonders. Suddenly the
facilities at the hospital started working without any hick up. The doctors and the staff were extra
courteous. The Deen Dayal Institute had no hesitation in examining Omana. The institute referred her back to Jawahar
Medical College Hospital as there was no evidence of cancer.
Omana was assigned a room
adjacent to the post operative ward where the doctors and nurses could monitor
her 24/7. They sympathized when she endured pain constantly. But no one could
discover the cause. Initially she had
been admitted in the general ward. But the constant attention she was given had antagonized the rest of
the patients and their bystanders. It was essential to probe the cause of her
disability. Fearing a political back lash the authorities had decided to shift
her.
Exasperated the doctors suggested
an option. As the tests and the reports could not identify the causative
factor, they suggested invasive surgery. They proposed to open the abdomen and probe. The patient had to be admitted to the Deen Dayal Institute. There was a condition. The patient and her relatives had to give them consent
to operate and remove internal organs or the intestines if warranted. They could
not hold the doctors and the hospital responsible for any unfortunate event. It
was like signing a death warrant. Omana and
her relatives had no other option. The doctors at the Deen Dayal Institute had
put forth yet another condition. They would operate on the patient if only the
doctors from the Jawahar Medical College Hospital were associated with the surgery.
The politician knew the ropes
very well. He visited the anesthetist
and presented a fat packet a day prior to the surgery. There had been several instances in the state
where the patients’ fortunes had nosedived when the anesthetist was not
properly taken care of. The anesthetist
refused to accept it as he knew that the patient had the backing of the Health
Minister.
When the surgery was performed the
doctors were horrified to discover that Omana had a burst appendix that had
gone unnoticed. It had occurred months
ago. The intestines were glued with
particles from the appendix and they surmised that the acute pain Omana
had endured was due to the presence of the alien particles in the intestines.
The surgeons did a thorough scavenging job on her.
Omana was discharged after
convalescence. She was requested to report for review after one month. The review saw
Omana in excellent health. The doctors remarked she could consider herself lucky that it was
not cancer she had been afflicted with and that it was the almighty Lord who
had saved her.
Omana has rejoined duty and the
immediate concern of the family is the huge debt that has piled up. They know
the good Lord will never abandon them.
