Continued from:
CHARITY DOESN'T COME FREE..ALWAYS (II)
http://severallyalone.blogspot.in/2013/02/charity-doesnt-come-freealways-ii.html
========================================================================
LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (31)
But, then there are certain natural questions making inroads.
Why making people stand like nonentities when there can be
alternate arrangements without changing much or without altering the no-frills
look and feel of the clinic? There is plenty of waiting space, in the hall of
the registration kiosk as well as in the lobby outside, and it would not alter
the branding of the clinic. Instead, the good word would make it even better.
All it takes for an assistant is to call the next patient when the
previous one leaves. And there is good number of assistants in the clinic. Be
it the free consultation and paid medicine or paid consultation and medicine,
people are being made to wait. What if someone is in urgent need of attention
or if it is someone who cannot stand for so long or someone like this grandpa
who cannot stand even for 10 minutes. At least give the gentleman a sitting
place till his number comes.
Like said earlier, there are many thoughts, many comments, many
observations and some solutions, being said, being proposed, while waiting to
see and meet the doctor. A good-sized piece (like this one) can be written on
the recollected thoughts of these waiting hours.
Meanwhile, there comes a privileged case. An assistant ‘guides’
someone out of the turn and takes him directly to the doctor. That, in addition
to the regular calls on the doctor’s cellphone, makes the waiting time even
longer. The frustration of wait makes getting to the place in the queue, which
offers a direct view of the doctor, an achievement. The younger man with the
grandpa, like others, is slowly inching towards this supplanted victory.
When the grandpa’s number finally comes, it is 8 PM. The younger
one calls the grandpa in the doctor’s chamber. The doctor takes five minutes to
go through the medical history written by the other doctor. Then he asks the
grandpa some questions. He checks the heart beat and writes a prescription on
one of the pages of the 4-page medical history. The grandpa is given three
types of medicines. The regime is for one month and the doctor will see the
progress to decide on the further course of action after it.
After 10 minutes, name of the grandpa is called. The younger one
with him is handed over a packet containing three vials of universally familiar
white globules or pellets, numbered 1, 2 and 3 - three pellets from vial-1 –
after two hours of it, three pellets from vial-2 – after two hours, three
pellets from vial-3. The cycle is to be repeated again and again vials-1, 2 and
3 in the sequence. The sequence, at intervals of two hours, is to be repeated
every day till going to the bed, for a month.
When they finally begin back home, it is 8:25 PM. The grandpa
reaches his place around 9:15 PM and he reaches his home around 9:30 PM.
Cost of the medicine + cost of the travel + 4 hours of in the
clinic – should we really call it a charity?
..or sometimes, we should say, “the charity doesn’t come free!”
(Sort of corporate social responsibility, where every social funding is an
investment aimed it creating social capital to drive home the scaled-up
profitability.)
By the claims of the clinic, it has distributed over millions of
free prescriptions over the years under its charity drive. Also, the medicine
was not too costly. At the cost of long hours of wait, it makes treatment by a
good doctor affordable to many who cannot even think of paying the consultation
fee of Rs. 1000. Good marks to the doctor on this front.
But yes, given the way the clinic is operating, like practicing
the age-old practice by the homeopathy doctors of not revealing their treatment
to the patients or not giving any prescription slip, and at the same time
charging for the cost of the medicine (like many homeopathy doctors do), it
naturally raises the point that charity doesn’t come free always. It was
certainly not free here, at this noted homeopathy clinic of the celebrated
doctor in the Bengali-dominated locality of South Delhi .
And this paid charity has given them smart return – a brilliant
branding – amply enhanced by the good use of technology focusing on elite ‘customers’.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
