It
was 1:00 am in the night, when my wife woke me up saying that our tiny tot (who
is six month old) is shivering and having a high fever. We immediately packed
him in all his beddings and rushed to pediatric ward of my hospital.
Surprisingly, on that night, there was less hassle and chaos in the ward. I
requested one of the senior post-graduate students to assess my baby. Wasting
no time, she immediately started assessing all the parameters and told us that
the baby was having 1020 F of temperature. Meanwhile, the baby again
started shivering with rigors and had two bouts of vomiting. Keeping in mind
the whole clinical scenario, the pediatrician advised to get the baby admitted
under intensive care.
We obliged and I rushed to the admission
counter to get all the admission formalities done, while my wife stayed back. The
baby was put on antipyretic drugs and injectable antibiotics (which I thought
was unnecessary). Few blood samples were drawn to know the cause of fever
(which ultimately was non-contributory except raised leucocytic count). Around
3 a.m. in the morning, both mother and
child went for a peaceful sleep. Somewhat relaxed and less anxious, I started
taking stock of other patients admitted under ICU care. Ours being a rural
medical college, most of the patients hailed from villages of central India. The
situation was disturbing, the usual laughter and infectious smile of babies
which enlightens the atmosphere was totally missing. It was replaced by shrill
cries, few moans and groans which were intermittently breaking the silence of
relatively peaceful ICU. Laughter, smiles and babbling, the usual signs of a
healthy baby was over powered by intermittent beeps and alarms of various
monitoring systems kept in the ICU. One of the child had various tubes and
catheters placed in all the possible orifices of the body and he seemed to be
in lot of pain. At other end of the ICU, few under-weight babies were admitted
for supportive care; one of the babies was grossly underweight at 1.34 kg and
looked listless. Amidst all these happenings, the post-graduate students were
regularly monitoring the vital parameters of the critical patients. Somehow, I
started comparing the plight of myself as a parent and the parents of other
critically ill babies. At one end, I being a doctor (knowing all the science
behind illness and diseases) was well placed financially and socially with a
good family support. On the other extreme were clueless parents caring for
their admitted babies with all the worries haunting them (financial crunch,
rain-washed crops, loss of wages, kids back home, and flooded homes). Every
day, I see hoards of patients thronging the hospital wards and OPD section
accompanied by their kin. Seldom, we doctors are concerned about the anxiety or
worries of the patients which are subconsciously occupying their debt burden
minds except giving few heavy sighs on reading some article (farmer suicide,
rain washed crops, poor rain, dry and wet drought) in the print media. We
doctors in government or semi-government setup readily gets miffed at the
patients when there is a delay in follow-up or the patients has missed few
pills in total disregard to his economic backing. It is a fact that the
financial and societal strata of the patient are predominant decisive factor
either in treatment adherence or regular clinic visits. It seems the white
apron donned by physicians makes him impermeable to all the agonies of the
patients and their kin.
Keeping
in mind the high rate of hospital acquired infections, we both considered it
wise to obtain discharge on request during morning rounds. I left the ICU with
a healthy baby and quite relieved. This culminated my short journey from a
physician via anxious parent ending with a humbled heart.
