COVER STORY
At a snail’s pace, he moved towards his closet recalling the tumultuous times he had witnessed all those years, or rather decades. Time had flown past, changing the young lad he was into an old man. He remembered the day, forty years ago, when his mother made him wear the white coat for the first time; it was a symbol of reverence; a symbol that his siblings vied for but couldn’t be identified with and only he was the ‘chosen one’ in the entire family. That day, his mother was the happiest person on earth. Today, he was to take off that white coat for one last time!
For an ordinary person, the coat was as white as it could be but only he could see the imprints of the ‘red hands’ that took the coat off, of the stains that were there on the coat and of the sweat that would leave its marks on the white coat for eternity. A journey had ended; a chapter in the long play of life behind hospital walls had come to a close!
If hard work were a person, he knew it would have been him. Since his childhood, books had been his companion; he’d find solace in the never-ending exams. He’d wonder how difficult it was to end up wearing the white coat. In time, he realized that maintaining its integrity was even more demanding.
Tears trickled down his eyes when he started to recall his journey of ups and downs, and of spring and autumn that spanned over forty years. Today, he finally had time for himself when no patient, attendant, senior, junior or a member of the nursing staff would interrupt his train of thought! He had a few memories to cherish — and many that brought him sorrow. One by one, all of them were unfolding.
After five years of dedication in MBBS, he finally had a badge describing him as a ‘Doctor sahib’ – something he had longed for and something for which his mother had left no stone unturned in her efforts. That marked the start of his formal presence in the hospital and the start of a lengthy interaction with patients of all classes and races.
Firstly, he recalled the pleasant memories he made in the hospital. There were, at least, a few of them. On one sweltering summer day, he stitched a gaping wound of a child who had fallen from the stairs. The child’s parents brought him a cold-drink from the canteen as a token of appreciation. In that weather, he couldn’t have asked for anything better!
Then, in the wee hours of a Friday, an elderly woman was brought to the ER in immense pain. All that he did was to administer an analgesic. The next time he came to monitor the vitals of the woman, she remarked: “Hamesha khush raho betay. Allah tumhain dheron khushiaan day” (Always stay happy, Son! May Allah give you plenty to be happy about). That made his day; in a moment he forgot his sleeplessness and tiredness!
“This is why I became a doctor”, he said to himself.
Some years later, his mother became ill. His in-charge was kind enough to approve his leave from work for a week despite the immense workload on his department. That was an act of kindness he never forgot, and never will.
If he had focused hard enough, he might have recalled more of the pleasant memories—cake parties, outings with friends, satisfied patients… But there was so much written on the other side of the page; he couldn’t help but turn it!
“Forty years in this coat, I wore it like an armour. But they only saw the red hands and the red stains, never realizing the weight I was carrying”, he sighed. And then, another train of thought started.
He had hardly made it home for a couple of hours when he got ready to return to the hospital for a ‘call’ that ended after 30 hours. That day, his wife was to give birth to their first child but his request for a leave was not granted. Throughout the sleepless day and night, he selflessly addressed many patients.
When one patient was being discharged from the hospital, his mother tried to appreciate the doctor who had just become a father.
“He took really good care of my son”, she told her other son.
“Our taxes fund their salaries; it’s their duty and he hasn’t done any favour”, the ‘well-informed’ son, who wasn’t a tax-payer, remarked.
His heart sank when he heard those words. “If staying alert by a patient’s side for 30 consecutive hours without proper food or sleep is nothing but a duty, it’s the toughest duty on the planet”, he muttered to himself before going towards another patient.
Moving on, he couldn’t recount how many public holidays and Eids he had spent away from his family and in the hospital. His parents and children would wish to have him by their sides on those events but they would never tell this to him; they knew the ‘demands’ of his profession. So, at times when the females of his family would have ‘mehndi’ on their hands, his hands would mostly be red with blood!
It was on one such Eid when, all of a sudden, five young boys were rushed to the ER with wounds that were bleeding profusely. It had been an accident while ‘celebrating’ (alas, he saw so many of such cases throughout his career). As part of their enjoyment on the occasion of Eid, they had been racing on the highway on two motorbikes when one of them lost control and collided with the other. In no time, their families had made a havoc at the ER. There were only two doctors on duty at that time and both of them were rushing from one patient to the other.
“Where is the doctor? My son is dying,” yelled the father of one of the boys.
“If anything happens to my brother, I’ll get an FIR filed against both of you”, the brother of another patient made it clear to him and his colleague.
The hue and cry persisted for hours when, finally, the boys’ condition was no more in danger. But, the words of their attendants had done the damage.
“If something had happened to the boys, that had to be our fault and not because of not wearing a helmet or over-speeding,” he complained to his colleague who had nothing to say in response other than wishing him a belated ‘Eid Mubarak’!
Time flew past and he gradually ascended the stairs of seniority. When, one day, he was the senior most doctor on call, three men rushed a toddler to the ER. The toddler was lying still on his father’s arms and his uncles appeared worried. Unfortunately, the toddler was declared dead on arrival. In the blink of an eye, the three men became violent to ‘avenge’ the death of the child! Fortunately, the security guards intervened to resist a thrashing of the doctors. His colleague at a hospital in another city was not that lucky; he had been beaten up by some influential relatives of a patient who had died a natural death and not due to any sort of negligence.
“That day, the three attendants thought that we were ‘red-handed’ when, in reality, their child had passed away before arriving at the hospital”, he thought, knowing that the incident was nor the first one, neither the last!
In came the COVID era when the entire world came to a standstill but not the hospitals, of course. There was no ‘work from home’ policy for the doctors. Rather, the doctors were the frontline warriors. But who cared? People would come to the hospital, get treated and go without getting vaccinated.
“Doctors get money to kill people by this injection”, alleged many of the patients, the educated and the illiterate, alike. He was surprised! How could the doctors be so cruel? At a time when a few of his colleagues gave their lives fighting COVID, they were being depicted as ‘people with red hands’ instead of heroes. That was the first time in his career that he regretted becoming a doctor!
Towards the end of his career, he was the head of his department. However, it was certainly not possible for him to procure sophisticated machines. Only a few among his patients would understand it.
Many would call him greedy, corrupt and what not. Their remarks would hurt him more than anything.
Those remarks continued till his retirement because funds for those machines were never approved.
Fast forward all those years, today had been his last day at the hospital. His juniors and colleagues had bid him a fitting farewell for his selfless service. Many of the patients admitted in the ward were visibly sad as well. He was moved. He knew that many pure souls will make it to this profession but there will be a handful of black sheep as well. He knew that many doctors will be let down and so would some patients. The role of the media had become a lot more crucial in shaping public opinion than it was during his time; his fellows would have a tough time in maintaining the nobility of this profession.
On reaching home, he carefully folded his white coat before placing it in the closet, for one last time!
“Those who saw the ‘red hands’ should have seen the heart beneath the coat”, he wished. A curtain had fallen upon his illustrious career. But before he closed the closet, he had just one thing to say to himself:
“Every stain on this coat has a name… and a story. Not one was greed or selfishness”!