Life in the hospital.

Step inside the room, its reasonably decent sized, with elephant grey colour on the walls, enter a stressed father carrying some folded papers and two or three vials of blood. This is the time when my work is about to begin before I entered the confines of this room I had to make my way from the parking to the main entrance, the parking spaces are taken up by the early birds, and I am dead sure that 60% of those are not even the cars of doctors or of the hospital staff. As I open the rear door to pull my white coat out, I can overhear a conversation taking place a few footsteps ahead of me. The corner room on the second floor, its window is open and a child is talking to a man, most probably her father. Who else would be sitting on the concrete floor, with the sun taking up the sky, my body feels the heat and the sweat glands start their production, a few drops appear on the forehead. As I wipe it all away with a tissue paper, I wonder how do they cope with it. 

Near the entrance of the main block, a majestic building stands in front of me, I had a wish to work here ever since I was able to do a month long rotation in this hospital. There are relative of different patients crowding the door, as I carefully make my way through, the guard notices notices and opens the door. But already there's more than one attendant inside in each ward; I never know why do so many of them come altogether. Perhaps, we (the healthy ones) take health for granted, a momentary lapse and as the ground gets uneven, a sudden surge of pain, and I tell myself to be careful. Through the hallway up the stairs and into the corridor leading to my workplace, a quite the journey. So many faces, children crying, teary eyed parents, looks of desperation, some with incurable diseases and some just a victim of poverty, I have not seen that play area with the noise of children playing but I have heard their cries. 

Ah let's go back to the room, the father of a patient, he looks anxious, going through the reports it's clear enough that the child has a deficiency of clotting factor, the clinical picture along with the coagulation profile is a good enough guess about the disease. As always, going in the history taking, an element which comes across so many times, Cousin marriages. I will talk about this more in the upcoming posts, but one thing which is evident from all this time of working as a doctor, there is no importance given to disease prevention, whether it is STDs, blood borne diseases, genetic diseases and others, we just love to get through the day, taking a day as it comes, but you know what, it brings you to a point where you feel you're a damn robot, the same routine, count the fuckin' hours and be home. No passion, no hammering of the concept of dedication, this will only get you to the very next day, perhaps not even that cause you never know when life's gonna bail out on you. Change starts small, the days I make my bed before leaving I feel relaxed when I get back home, I'm not coming back to a mess. It took some planning, I had to consider something before making that bed, perhaps this is what we need and what I also need, considering the effects of our actions, the value of what they yield and how this effect reflects back on our lives. Merely getting through the day and hitting the hay is not enough, this approach is what's wrong with us. 

It's nearly 30 past two and my work has finally finished, the sun high up in the sky, blessing the land with a generous serving of brightness, and the humidity makes it all a wee bit better. I see the same person, the one who was talking to someone on the second floor, sitting down and having lunch under the shade of a tree, I wonder how much do we take from granted. As I put the key in the ignition and turn it, the engine roars to life, and I am on my way back home.