have been waiting for over half an hour and no one has come to see me yet!”
Little do you know,
that a nurse has already checked your vitals and informed the doctor who is attending to a patient in emergency who has only moments left!
“No one has come to clean the room, We can’t find him anywhere’,
Little do you know,
that the ward boy hasn’t been home, worked the entire night and is now cleaning a blood stained sheet with utmost care!
“I think my father has a severe cough, he might have pleural effusion. By the way, What is asthma?”
Little do you know,
that the doctor has spent 10 years to get a degree, 10 more years of experience to make his diagnosis, while you spent 10 minutes on the internet and wasted 30 minutes of his time trying to explain it to you, time that he could have used to see one of his 100 patients…
“Oh no! I have another one waiting outside to see me. It just doesn’t end.”
Little do you know,
that her father just had a heart attack, her son met with an accident and she’s been waiting outside for hours to know if her unborn child is safe.
“He has soiled the bed yet again, this is the third time I have had to change and clean him.”
Little do you know,
that he was a general in the army and commanded many troops, he was proud but now is paralysed and cannot speak, wishing he could go back in time or better still make it go faster…
“Why are they constantly complaining? Hope they would just leave us alone”,
Little do you know,
that in a few hours he would be no more, a lifeless body who left behind anxious children who are guilty they couldn’t spend enough time with him when he was alive.
Healthcare is more than just a business of saving lives,
It is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes,
Empathy can transcend race, language, profession and creed,
Quality of life, of your heart and mind is all you will ever need…
Poem by Dr Rohini Rau
SICU – In- Charge
Senior Resident Medical Officer
MBBS, MSc Internal Medicine (University of Edinburgh)
Poem by Dr. T. S. Sabeeha, MBBS, DNB, OBG
Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist
Kauvery Hospital