Continued from:
CHARITY DOESN'T COME FREE..ALWAYS (I)
http://severallyalone.blogspot.in/2013/02/charity-doesnt-come-freealways-i.html
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LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (31)
The
security guard, on routine interrogation on how much on an average it takes for
the doctor to wind up with this many of patients, tells us it would be anything
around 8 PM. He further tells the doctor usually comes around 5:30/6 PM. The doctor
only leaves when all the patients registered are done with and he gives due
attention to every patient.
That
was around 5 PM.
So
another hour of wait lies further ahead. They are sitting in the lobby of the
clinic. A while after it, an elderly gentleman advises the younger of them to
go inside as they are the first-timers to the clinic and their names would be
called to show the reports.
Thanking
him for the advice (a valuable one), he goes inside. Soon after entering, he
finds his name being called by another clinic assistant. The assistant gives him
a small piece of paper with the number 36 written over it and asks him to show
the reports of grandpa to another doctor sitting in the chamber adjacent to the
registration kiosk.
He
proceeds and finds that he is in queue there. The doctor inside is taking her
time while talking to the visiting patient and diligently asks and writes
detailed reports on patient’s medical history.
Around
5:30 PM, his number comes.
He
goes inside with the reports and briefs the doctor but when he feels he cannot
go back much longer into the medical history of the grandpa, he brings him in.
The doctor thoroughly goes through the reports of grandpa and talks to him
about the health problems he is facing. She efficiently jots down every detail
and gives a case-number to the grandpa’s and fills approximately 4 pages of a
small-sized booklet. They come out of the chamber after it to wait for the next
step. They are now carrying the 4-page report history with them to be shown to
the doctor.
That
was around 6 PM.
Soon
the number 36 is called. Apparently, the doctor has come or the doctors have
come. The patients are advised to be in the queue in front of a room that has
name plate of two doctors. The room is divided in two chambers. In a side-room
with yet another chamber, there is another doctor sitting. Common to the rooms
is a passageway that is not more than 2 feet wide. There also lies a washroom
on the passageway that is about 2 metres long.
The
waiting patients are asked to stand in queue in the passageway. He asks the
grandpa to sit and wait and goes to stand in the queue. He finds he is 11th
in the run to reach the celebrated homeopathy doctor of Delhi
He
is standing in the queue waiting for the grandpa’s turn to come. The queue is
moving with a speed that even the legendary tortoise of the ‘hare and tortoise
race’ fable could not match.
There
is plenty of time at hand but cannot be utilized in time-pass activities like
reading a book as one cannot stand in the corridor easily. Patients visiting to
the other doctors are passing through the same passageway. There is regular in
and out of the assistants. Then, there are people keeping the washroom
constantly engaged, one after the other – all in the passageway, 2 metres long
and 2 feet wide, having 15 people cramped in it. Nor, one can use gadgets like
cellphones or tablets to talk or surf the internet as the signal is too
weak.
So
people are there, standing in the queue waiting for their turn to come. The
immediacy and the boring moments of the long-wait initiate the natural process
of socializing. People start questioning why so much of delay, why the queue is
not moving at all, why no one is coming out. People begin conversation. They
make comments. There are attempts to make or receive phone calls in the weak
signal zone. Some of them keep asking the assistants how longer it is going to
take.
Someone
says the doctor gets deeply involved with his patients and such long waiting
time is routine. He can see it. No problem with that.
To
continue..
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
