No, I'm fine, and I did not come here to get admitted. I work at a hospital - not as a doctor but as a cog in the big corporate machine that makes the doctors' life easier.
Like any other emergency service, a hospital is open 24 by 7, 365 days a year, and needs someone in decision making capacity to be present 24 by 7, 365 days a year. Since there are only a handful of executives and managers, once in a month, non-medicos like me get to play the supreme being for a night. And what does it entail? Endless stream of emergency cases, police to be called for gunshot victims, water leaking in through an open window in the lab threatening to ruin the new blood analyzer, an anxious patient who needs to be calmed down before a big surgery tomorrow, 18 family members of a critically ill patient who insist on spending the night in the hospital, transport arrangements for the cardiologist who must come down for an echo on a serious patient, an american citizen who believes he's suffering from colon cancer when all he has is the Delhi Belly... mayhem, in short, that must be calmed behind the curtains, as it were.
In the middle of all this, a child of four is standing at the Reception, watching his father request the guard to allow him inside the ICU. Visiting hours are over, and children below 12, in any case, are not allowed inside patient rooms. It's a rule you'd find in almost all hospitals who are serious about infection control. Children are the most common carriers of infection and catch them faster than adults too - the reason why they are kept out of patient areas.
The boy hasn't seen his mother for two days and looks like he's ready to burst into tears. The guard declines politely, again and again and once again. The father turns back, probably bracing himself for his son's tears, when the receptionist holds out a slip of paper. "Your pass, Sir", he says. The man is blank for a moment. Then he smiles as he understands, and asks the boy to thank 'bhaiya'. "No one's allowed to cry here, you know", says the receptionist, "And I couldn't have allowed those 18 people sleeping in the corner to be disturbed. Run up and give your mom a hug, because she's going to need all the hugs she can get ! " The boy begins his run to the elevator, and 'bhaiya' allows himself a smile before busying himself with the new admission.
My parents always questioned my choice of workplace, "You are not a doctor or a nurse or technician. What are you going to do in a hospital?" Times like these, I understand what I'm doing in a hospital.