Keya Sarkar: Doctor 'Do-littles'

In all my years in Mumbai I cannot recollect my colleagues falling ill or being indisposed as often as my co-workers in Santiniketan. I do not know if the reason is that artisans I now work with are financially less privileged or whether it is the general Bengali predisposition to hypochondria. I have not done any research on this but by simple visual survey, it would seem the per square metre density of chemists is surely among the highest in Bengal.

The girls who man my shop or those who work in my studio are often complaining of stomach aches or headaches or allergic reactions, not to mention the cold, cough and fever. The panacea for all ills is of course the government hospital, where a bottle of saline is the first prescription. This placebo, though welcome, is not sufficient. After that starts the discussion about which 'specialist' to consult. Inserts in newspapers, which announce specialists from Kolkata whom patients can consult once or twice a week, are the most common. The knowledge that my colleagues have about which specialist doctor is available at which clinic on what day is impressive. Anybody suffering is always given numerous examples of friends, relatives and neighbours who had the same affliction and were cured by one of these miracle specialists.

Unlike other problems in their lives, they know I can be of monetary help in issues of health. Since I see no doctors and have no medicine, my knowledge about the profession is clearly at a discount. As many of them have government guaranteed medical cards or insurance, even their requests for medical help are few and far between.

Recently, when one of the girls who works with me - Mariam - started to complain of a stomach ache, my first advice to her was to ignore it. But it persisted and she saw a doctor and many specialists thereafter. Then she visited hospitals in Burdwan and Kolkata and was finally told she needed a hysterectomy. Despite the fact that she has three sons, I thought 32 was too young an age to have such an operation. But who was I to question the opinion of so many specialists?

Last week she had the operation and we were calling up every day to find out how she was feeling. She complained of a persisting stomach ache, which was so bad a few times that she couldn't even talk. I was growing a little concerned knowing how great mofussil nursing homes are. Her colleagues asked for permission to go and see her one afternoon after lunch. I denied saying the hospital was not a picnic venue, so many couldn't descend on an ill person.

Our phone vigil continued. One day her husband called to say she was better. Her stomach kept aching because apparently the nurses gave her wrong injections. "Instead of pain relieving injections, they gave her 'operation' injections," said her husband. Of course, I got no cogent answer to what on earth was an 'operation' injection.

When I expressed my anguish to other girls saying how could nurses make such a mistake, they replied these mistakes happened all the time. Drawing from her vast reservoir of anecdotes, a girl mentioned how a nearby nursing home had damaged a patient's kidney because of wrong administration of medicines.

Their faith in the local medical practitioners, however, remains unchanged.