May 6, 2010

A couple of months back, my wife Rita, was hurrying down the steps with luggage at Thane railway station when she fell on her back. She still carried on as she had to catch a train to Nagpur on a 2 week official tour.

She told me about it only after she came back. There was a lemon sized swelling on her lower back but there was no pain. I insisted that we show it to a doctor and took her to a lady doctor, whom we shall call Mrs.A.  We didn’t know her personally, but she ran a full fledged mini hospital. After examination, Mrs.A said that it has to be operated upon.  It was a Saturday and she said that it had to be done soon, on Monday itself. She asked us to see a surgeon, Dr.K, then and there, who will do the operation on Monday and it can be conveniently done at her hospital.

We went to the surgeon Dr.K, who got the call from Mrs.A when we were sitting with him. Now, Dr.K was attached to another hospital and preferred doing the operation there but we could make out that Mrs.A wanted it done at her hospital only. Some blood tests had to be done before the operation and since the next day was Sunday, Mrs.A specially arranged a pathologist to take blood samples at her hospital.

I started doing some research and found that unless it was painful, such swellings are simple collection of dead cells with the technical term 'haematoma' and would often go by itself. We also visited an ayurvedic doctor, who without even an examination, prescribed some ointments and tablets.

Meanwhile, we bought time for a week from Mrs.A, citing work pressure. The ayurvedic medicine began working and the swelling started shrinking. After a week and a half, we informed Mrs.A over the telephone . She insisted that it be shown to her as it could develop complications. We didn’t go.

Over the course of time, the swelling disappeared completely.

It is pathetic to see the greed of doctors like Mrs.A, who schedule an operation without doing any preliminary studies. There are people who point a knife at you and ask for your money. I feel they are better than people like Mrs.A who unnecessarily drive a knife through your body and then ask large sums of money for cutting you up.