Indian Hospital

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It was in the town of Kota that a worrying rash appeared on my legs and arms. At first I told myself that it was merely mosquito bites, but after a while the itchy purple blotches became far too numerous for that to be a plausible explanation. Maybe an allergic reaction to a bite then. But out of the hypochondriac recesses of my mind emerged an alternative theory. What about all the beggars I had seen on the street with all manner of exotic skin diseases? Beggars who would occasionally clutch at my hand as I passed by. Maybe a good idea to get a professional opinion, then, just to be on the safe side...

The hotel receptionist did not seem very concerned, when I asked whether they had a doctor on call. He glanced briefly up from his newspaper and waved his hand vaguely towards the door. "Hospital outside", he said. But as it turned out, the main hospital was indeed just across the road. It was 8 a.m.. We entered the building and saw lines of patients in beds parked in dingy, dimly lit corridors. Oh well, just like the NHS here too then. I showed the rash on my arm to the uniformed man behind a desk at the entrance. He glanced briefly up from his newspaper and waved his hand vaguely towards a corridor. "There", he said.

We walked along the corridor, which was crowded with people, most of them looking sick, or lost, or both. On both sides of the corridor were rooms, some empty, but some containing people in white coats, which was very reassuring. But it was not clear which room we needed. I walked into a room with a friendly looking nurse and showed her my arm. She said something, probably in Hindi, but at any rate in some language that I could not understand. Fortunately there was a patient in the room, a young man, who spoke English. "Room 109", he said, "Skin diseases".

We found Room 109, where there were no people in white coats to be seen, but a disorderly queue of patients had formed in the corridor outside. We joined the queue. Almost immediately a young man, a patient, detached himself from the head of the queue and came up to us. He had a large handkerchief over his mouth and nose, like a bandit, so that he had a slightly menacing air about him.
"Did you register?" he said.
"No", I said,"I didn't know it was necessary"
"You have to register" he said "By the entrance"

So reluctantly I returned to the entrance, leaving Tracey to guard my place in the queue. The doorman was still reading his newspaper.
"I have to register" I said.
He glanced briefly up from his newspaper and waved his hand vaguely towards the same corridor as before.
"Room 120" he said.
There was a certain look in his eyes as he said this, a look that I have seen often in India, usually when I have asked someone a question. It is a rabbit-caught-in the-headlights look. Usually it means that the question has not been understood, and that the answer is simply designed to get rid of the questioner, even if only for a short while, so that the answerer can get back to whatever important business has his full attention at that moment, for instance, reading the newspaper.

I found Room 120. It was one of the few rooms that had a sign in English: "Back complaints", it said. I returned to the queue outside Room 109 and went up to the Bandit.
"Can you help me, please", I said, "I can't find the place where I have to register."
He lead me along the corridor, back towards the entrance. His eyes scrutinised me over the top of his bandit mask.
"You should wear a handkerchief" he said "Do you have a handkerchief?"
"No," I lied "Why do you wear a handkerchief?"
"Swine flu" he said, "Very dangerous here."
I thought how ironic it was, in a country with serious problems with often fatal diseases like malaria, dengue fever, aids, etc., that a relatively harmless disease like swine flu should have so caught the public imagination. Power of the media, I guess.

Back at the entrance hall, the Bandit led me over to a counter on the opposite side of the hall from the doorman with the newspaper. "Register here" said the Bandit, and disappeared back up the corridor. Behind the counter were two harassed-looking officials. In front of the counter, a small crowd of perhaps fifteen people were pushing and jostling, each of them waving a piece of paper and trying frantically to get the immediate attention of one of the people behind the counter. This was a typical Indian queue, of which I had already encountered many at the ticket offices of bus and train stations. Applying the lessons learned at these previous encounters, I temporarily suppressed my natural British instincts of reticence and fair play, pushed my way ruthlessly through to the counter, and shoved my passport under the nose of one of the officials. He beavered away on a keyword for a few minutes and then gave me a small piece of paper. Clutching this prize, I fought my way back out of the scrum and made my way back up the corridor. I looked at the paper. It was entirely in Hindi except for a few words. There were my first names, but no surname - oh well, good enough. And the word "Christian". For an instant I thought, perhaps this referred to my christian names, but no, of course, it must be my religion. Now how did he know that? Should I march angrily back to the counter and demand a correction? But then, to what? Agnostic? Wannabe Buddhist? Daylight atheist? Better not, it would only open up a can of worms.

Back at room 109, the queue was slightly more disorderly than before, but still recognisably a queue. Now and again the Bandit would shout at anyone who manifestly tried to jump the queue, and perhaps his menacing appearance served to create some order. By this time there were three men in white coats installed in the room. One by one the patients entered the room, and quickly emerged again with a look of satisfaction, or at any rate relief, usually clutching a prescription. In a surprisingly short time I found myself in the room. One of the men in white coats was evidently a figure of authority, judging from his demeanour and that of his two subordinates, presumably students, who said nothing but furiously made notes of everything he said as though he was a great font of wisdom. To my great relief he spoke excellent English, although this relief was immediately tempered by a slight irrational irritation as I realised that his English was actually better than mine. English public school maybe. He inspected my rash thoroughly.
"There is a high probability that you are displaying a hypersensitivity to an insect bite", he said.
"You mean an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite?" I said, determined to show that I too was not uneducated, despite my inferior accent.
He looked at me over the top of his glasses with a look that could have directed at one of his less able students.
"Or another insect, yes", he corrected me, but without malice.
Sensing that I was not about to win any kind of status contest with this guy, I thanked him profusely, took the prescription and left. As we walked out of the hospital I nodded cordially at the doorman, but he did not look up from his newspaper.

On the other side of the road from the hospital there was a whole row of rather makeshift, competing pharmacy stalls, where patients could take their prescriptions. I selected one at which an elderly Sikh stood behind the counter, simply on the basis of my limited experience with the Indian service industries. In that experience, elderly Sikhs have distinguished themselves in terms of language skills, honesty, and politeness. The man brought me some pills and some lotion - the charge was 60 rupees, about one Euro. Another customer peered with curiosity at my prescription. Taking him to be an interfering busybody, I gave him a hostile glare, but then he introduced himself as a junior doctor from the hospital. Thinking that a second opinion would do no harm, I showed him my rash and the prescription. Perhaps I even secretly hoped that The Great Consultant had made a blunder, or that I did after all have something extremely exotic and rare that would propel me to dubious fame in medical textbooks, the Guinness Book of Records, even the internet. But the junior doctor merely confirmed the diagnosis.
"Ah, yes, you were examined by him", he said, looking at the illegible handwriting on the prescription.
"A good man. A very good man", he added, with that superfluous praise that junior practitioners of every profession like to bestow on their seniors, demonstrating as it does their own precocious powers of good judgment.

I took my leave of the pharmacy, nodding politely to the elderly Sikh, and shook hands with the junior doctor. I noticed that he wore gloves, despite the very warm weather - perhaps, like the Bandit, he was protecting himself from something.

As we walked away, I glanced at my watch. It was still only 9 a.m.. Within the space of one hour, despite all the confusion, frustrations, and hassles, I had been examined by a competent specialist, received a definitive diagnosis, and collected my prescription, all at a total cost to me of one Euro. Where in Europe would I have achieved this much, in so little time, and for so little cost? Three cheers for the Indian health service, I thought. Then a shadow crossed my mind. Somebody must be paying for this, I thought, and that somebody can only be the Indian taxpayer, in a country where the average income is still only one or two euros a day...

Oh, fiddle-de-dee, well I'll think about that tomorrow...

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