Hospital Visit

Hospital is a place where we find only the sick and the disabled. The smells of medicines, the sight of the doctors and nurses running here and there, and wheelchairs rolling from one end of the hospital to another is all that we see in a hospital.

The aura is ever so depressing and disheartening. Some people even get nausea or faint with the effect of the pungent smells hanging in the very air of the hospital premises.

Once when my grandfather was very seriously ill, and was hospitalised I had the opportunity of visiting a hospital for the first time. Oh! It was such a pathetic sight that I was almost in tears within a few minutes of being there. I saw patients groaning and moaning with acute pain, as they sat on benches in front of the doctor's rooms, waiting to be attended to.

The first area I crossed by was the OPD area, i.e. the, Out Patent Department. Here the people are checked for their ailments, prescribed medicines and sent home.

They are the sick who need treatment but do not need to be kept in the hospital and that is why they are referred to as, out door patients. Here the scene was of agony, as, there was groaning with pain, there were patients vomiting, there were patients complaining of complete mismanagement and their long wait outside the doctor's room. All this gave me a feeling of shame and disgust, and I, at that point wished that I could do something for the poor patients.

After crossing the long queue of the outdoor patients who were waiting for their turns, we entered the general ward, where my father, also a doctor had to see some patients.

The general ward has a number of beds on which lie patients with different ailments, and here, the doctors and nurses keep visiting by turns. The scene here was still worse as, here I saw for the first time, a few patients with their legs as if tied with strings and tied to a sloping sort of a platform, on which their feet rested. I asked my father what had happened to these men.

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