Life In A Hospital~Some Reflections & Lessons!

Our forefathers probably didn't see a hospital in their lives but our generations life begins there and ends there. The first lap for them was their mothers while today's millennial was a the trained nurses in the labor room. It was then either at home or in the forest with or without delivery team. They were delicate and soft probably with closed eyes yet they grew strong and lived 100. The millennial was just opposite with open eyes to wink to the nurses and looked healthy yet it is hard for us to make through 60s. It was more of natural birth and healthy life they lived through unlike us in era of chemicals and drugs. We are the most advanced and comfortable generation to live on earth with the sophisticated technology today yet neither technology nor God is able to make humans most wished goal to live healthy and long possible. This is the irony of life.

Thus, one is sure to visit the hospitals atleaset thrice in a life time even if one is healthy and strong. Some unfortunate ones live most of thier lives in hospitals with uncertain illness or fateful accidents. For them, the wards become thier home and the health professionals working there become their family. I had the privilege to born on my mother's lap not in hospital but I couldn't escape the fate of hospital wards both as a patient and an attendants to my family. As a patient one goes through the stages of healing and new life again and as an attendant one goes through the reflections phases and realization.

There is another hope of life when you recover and rise from the bed. The gratitude and thankfulness you owe to the doctors and nurses swells in your heart and they simple take it through your recovering faces. The doctor-patient relationships is simply the communication of silence. The most fulfilling moment of doctors and nurses are when their patients recover back to life and the worst is when some unfortunate ones breathe their last on their laps. The routine continues and life goes on. Their noble job of 24 hours service to the human lives is simply unmatched with rest of the jobs. 

Their patience for patients is the test of their mental toughness and the professionalism they display. Since they are treating sick person not a normal human being which are bound to abnormal reactions and abusive nature of patients sometimes. The attendants may also out of frustration abuse the staffs and often the blame game of carelessness surfaces if patient dies despite their best efforts. The disabled and mental patients are more challenging to handle. What if one gets an emergency call at midnight or early hour 2:00 am call? The health professionals can't deny because they don't want their patients to die. 

To see all these affairs one has to be a patient or an attendant but only few see it to appreciate and rejoice the life. Because nobody wants to come hospital but they want to live healthy. It is not their choice but the result of open secret of unhealthy diet. If this is a place where life starts and the place must be life inspiring than place of despair instead. Whether one is sick or not, the place is of worship and life thriving. The prayers are heard more in hospitals than in church or temples because both the patients and health professionals put in their actions for life process. The touch (physical check) of a doctors and nurses to their sick patients heals more than by the medicine they prescribed them. Further, the soft words or communication with the patients simply does miracles because the humans are more mental and emotional than physical. Thier emotional response is more powerful than physical in recovery aspects. I have heard and seen the stern nurses and doctors but they do the best treatment among the professionals.

Health and education are given the utmost priority in any nation and Bhutan is no exception. We are fortunate to have life long free health services. Thanks to our visionary Monarchs and the government. When we have the top priority service it is definitely one of the  best services we are getting yet many don't agree because they feel it is one sided service. Their mandate is to get a token and be in a queue unless serious but we loose patience to wait. After sometimes, the queue gets broken and we start rushing. The queue continues from 9:00 am till 3: 00 pm and just imagine the load one person is taking inside the chamber. The services would be best served if both the party gets into each other's shoe sometimes. 

If you are not an OPD patient, you get to live the service they provide inside the ward right from food to your medicine. I can say we have the best nurses/GNM/HA and support staffs in the wards where ever I stayed as a patient or an attendant.  I recall my first NS drop at Damphu hospital where my father was attending me day and night. There my life was hanging in each drop of the Normal Saline. I was literally bed ridden for a week and hardly move. I used to attend myself at night gazing at each drop of NS after my dad falls asleep on the floor below my bed. I was making sure that no blood from my body should flow back to the NS bottle- the common misconception then. So, I used to let my father's Kera-belt loose down to his face to wake him up and call the nurse to change it. After I was referred to JDWNRH in Thimphu, I had a sound sleep as there were more staffs to take care of the patients. I miss those three times meal on time. We have no proper meal time at home which is killing us slowly. If we are to follow the hospital and monasteries meal time, we would invite less diseases.

It is a relieving moment to see the staffs taking the charge of their respective shifts duty from thier colleagues  in morning or evening. They make sure that patients history and medication for recovery are not taken for granted. The next moment comes more curious when doctors visit each patient to see thier progress. Some patients eagerly waiting for their discharge to rush home like they got freedom from prison. And that is the moment where they show thier hidden manner to stand or atleast sit on patients's tool after they wake from the vacant bed available next to the patient. Some attendants are mistaken for patients when doctors find them in deep sleep without medical prescription history on the edge of the bed. An innocent village attendant gets a call in a loud ring tone and he receives with louder response to the caller. The doctor and his staffs stand astonished when they were busy discussing the patients history. The nurse asks him to go out and attend and he is guided to the washroom to continue attending his call. There was a critical patient with soaring body temperature and fever which might invite convulsion. The brother ask the attendant to sponge his forehead to body trying to explain the consequences but the attendant was busy in phone. The long call ends and brother asks her to sponge the sick son. The mother replies , " let me finish my rosary beads count". Brother smiles and digest his frustration with compassion.

Despite free three times meal to the patients and to some attendants yet we expect our friends and relatives residing nearby by to drop delicious meals. We focus on taste not in healthy diet which is an open crime against oneself. We are what we eat and we know least about eating right food and quantity. We all know we eat to live not live to eat yet food is the least concern we give. We have probably forgotten what the hunger is because we have forgotten what life is too. Thus, no food serves it purpose. We have to clean this mental mess. 

The housekeeping is next to food in the hospital if any one of us have observed it. One can see the staffs cleaning the ward twice in a day-mopping and wet cleaning. However, as we reach the wash rooms and toilet areas, it is common to observe that those places are again neglected as Chaplop Passu sir always mentions and he has a beautiful message about toilet culture in Bhutan in his PaSsu Diary page. When it comes to the toilet culture we are poor in its management right from the space design to housekeeping. One would find only the door sized room toilet and healthy sized man would find himself suffocated. The flush tank would either be nonfunctional or missing in many cases. The only water connected to the toilet has its tap sticked to the wall just to fit in the small jug below. 

The worst part is people don't flush it properly be it in wards or public toilet. I wonder, if they do same in their home. This is a serious lack of self discipline. People don't leave even to spit the chewing doma in the pot and walls they come across. The floors are often cleaned but we neglect the walls and corners with spiders web around. The window panes are stained with either doma spit or tobacco leaves. So, what you do when you are sharing such toilets or washrooms? We have no other option than to clean it ourselves and make it homely. One need to involve in the act to get the result. Many won't understand and they lack simple discipline of life and they just leave it to others. The rest areas in hospitals or offices are all as per 5S policy except toilets. The area where we are supposed to keep cleanest is the dirtiest. It is bad. This area needs to be seriously looked into for clean Bhutan.