What the doctor ordered

Recently, I visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, to enquire about a friend who underwent an emergency surgery. One of the two major changes I noticed was the numerous signboards, warning people of the consequences of indulging in violence against doctors and damaging hospital property. CCTV cameras had come up in every nook and corner of the building. Various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the quantum of punishment the violators would attract were mentioned prominently on notice boards.

I also observed that the security of the institute had been entrusted to a private agency. Gone were the days when ward boys’ writ ran in the corridors of the premier hospital. Now, private security guards are responsible for the safety of healthcare personnel.

My mind travelled back to my childhood days, four-and-a-half decades ago, when Mohinder Pal Singh was the only doctor available in our locality. He was an old-school healthcare provider who had graduated from being a compounder to becoming a registered medical practitioner. Every time he visited our house to give an injection to my grandmother, a hush would fall over the house. My mother would rush to the kitchen to boil water to sterilise his reusable syringes and needles.

Our domestic help had accidentally scalded his leg with molten coal tar while passing by an under-construction road. The services of Dr Mohinder Pal were requisitioned immediately. Once done with the bandaging of the leg, he ordered strict bed rest for two weeks. Noticing a considerable improvement in his condition, my father asked him to run an errand that, in turn, led to the recurrence of swelling and pain in the affected leg. This was enough for the doctor to lose his cool. He gave a piece of his mind to my father.

Later, even when he had fully recovered, my father didn’t dare assign him household chores until the stern but sincere doctor had declared his patient fit.

Those were the days when people held doctors in high esteem. And now, things have come to such a pass that healthcare professionals need security to perform their duties.

On my way back from the hospital, I kept thinking about the need to fix a ‘precautionary’ notice board at my clinic, too. But for the time being, I have decided to put up a poster similar to the one that adorned a wall of our family doctor’s clinic — ‘I treat, He cures’.