LOVE MAKES LIFE LIVE

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Characters:

 

1. an old man- Tuberculosis patient. Status- Terminally ill

2. a young boy- Lung cancer patient. Status -Terminally ill

3. A young lady- Leukemia (blood cancer) patient. Status Terminally ill

 

Location:

 

MMW (Male Medicine ward) and FMW (female Medicine Ward), District Head

Quarters Hospital.

 

Scene

 

It was really amazing to see the daily progress notes put by my

seniors of previous years. Their dossier was almost an inch thick.

Patients usually do not last that long in a middle level government

hospital. I mean either they get cured or else referred to the higher

centre. Most of the times they just die.. but they do not last this

long, almost two years, in the same hospital.

 

I used to see them daily during rounds - sitting together and talking

for hours. They were sharp enough to judge the temperament of doctors

on round. It took only one day for them to understand that I like my

patients present on their respective beds with no attendants or

relatives to interfere, their case sheet spread in front of them and

they themselves on their toes to speak out new problems and sufferings

the moment I ask them. Except for that one precise hour when the round

was in progress and one such hour in the evening one can easily see

them sitting together and talking endlessly.

 

What about them? I asked Mrs Jincy, the matron.

What about whom?

Those three sitting under the sun all the time and chatting?

 

Oh, do not you worry Doctor. This hospital has become their home. They

have no place to go. Their families have left them to suffer at their

own long long ago. They are abandoned. They know they are terminally

ill and the moment they put their steps out of this hospital they are

going to die not only because of their disease but more because of

hunger and cold. So whenever their general condition improves a bit

and we try to discharge them, they pretend as if something wrong

happened with them overnight-become breathless, start feeling pain,

stop eating and even start rolling in beds. This way they successfully

escape discharge.Â

 

But this not fair! If they are untreatable here they should be

referred to tertiary care hospital. Unnecessarily they are blocking

the beds meant for more deserving patients.Â

 

Who cares Madam? Here the protocol is different. This hospital is not

like the other overcrowded hospitals. Somehow we get much less

patients than an average hospital should have. We are supposed to have

a minimum of 150 indoor patients all the times or else...Â

 

I could read between the lines-what she meant to say. My sister has

the same story. She is a government primary school teacher in a rural

area. They are provided with three class rooms, three teachers and a

specific amount of mid-day meal to cover 150 students from class one

to five. If the number of student drops down to 100 and below during

any given calendar year then one teacher is withdrawn and posted

elsewhere. Then the burden falls on to rest of the two. Hence to

maintain the requisite student-teacher ratio every year few false

nonexistent names are entered into the admission register. (You can

easily find Aishwarya Rais, Salman Khans, Rajesh Khannas and Priyankas

reading in various primary schools) In extreme cases the passed out

students of class five are readmitted back to class three. My sister

gives a nice explanation to this too, at least by this way we prevent

the ever-growing number of school dropouts every year. Middle school

is at least five K.M. away and students are reluctant to walk that

length everyday!!!!!!!........

 

I preferred not to interfere anymore. Let them do whatever they wish

in rest of their lives. Looking at them on daily basis gave me immense

courage to face reality of life in a positive way. Here there are

three persons who know they are fatally ill and have no hope or dream

left in their lives but can still manage to laugh and enjoy!!! How

could they????

 

I got the answer after the following series of events.

 

One fine day, I saw the two men fighting on the grass just in front of

the FMW. There was a little gathering around them but no one was

trying to stop them. The moment they saw me, the crowd scattered and

dispersed. These two gentlemen mumbled few words of apology and went

to their respective beds. Their face, arms and other parts of the body

were badly bruised. The lung cancer patient (Ya! We doctors identify

patients with their respective diseases, ..the diabetes patient... the

malaria patient... the dengue patient..etc..etc) was already too

dyspnoic (breathless). He was given oxygen support, artificial

respiration and had to be shifted to I.C.U. But after three days he

died. I could always mark a shadow of guilt on the face of the T.B.

patient whenever I went to his bed - as if he wanted to say some thing

to me. But he never said anything. Once I even tried to poke him but

he kept looking blank. He was found dead in his bed exactly after a

month. His death was relatively silent. Not even the patient of the

next bed could know. He passed away in his sleep. As expected the girl

also expired after 10 days, almost silently. There were no blood

donors left in the family and enough blood could not be arranged from

the blood bank which was about 200 Km. away. There was no one to get

it from there. These explanations were all for documentation purposes

only. We all had foreseen and expected her death... and in the bundle

of belongings found under the mattress of the bed which was home to

her for the last two years, wrapped in a polythene, were neatly kept a

stalk of letters about 50 to 60 of them, written by the lung cancer

and the T.B. patient-addressed to her.

 

So this was the reason, both men were in love with the girl, silently,

unknown to each other. And the girl was too confused to reciprocate I

think. Or may be she was silently enjoying this undue attention that

she was able to draw for the first time in her life. Being terminally

ill it was needless for her to express her true feelings to either of

them. And this mutual love for each other was responsible for their

extended life span. Truly, Love can blossom anywhere, can appear,

survive and proliferate in the most adverse of situations. Till the

time the men were oblivious of this 3-way love, it was alright. Then

somehow the men could discover this, love got transformed to hatred.

They got involved in a gruesome fight, and the very reason of their

survival became the cause of their death. It is painful yet true.

 

LOVE MAKES LIFE LIVE-LOVE MAKES LIFE DEAD.