For last almost a week, I spent most of my time in a city private
hospital. No it was not me but my father who fell ill and had to be
hospitalized. After the doctors at emergency addressed his immediate
problems, he was admitted. Next morning came a strange doctor whom we
met for the first time as the hospital authority almost thrust him on
us. To our utter amazement he turned out to be a semi-God for us. Though
we had to wait outside his OPD chamber with my ailing father for about
two hours in two phases, the way he welcomed us to his chamber, we
digested the anger that was piling inside us. After a long time we met a
doctor who after checking my father and before prescribing any medicine
or advising any surgery, sat with us including my father and started
drawing the organs where the problem lies. In layman’s language he
explained every bit of the physical problem and then talked about the
options to solve it. Any handsome or beautiful doctor smiling at us and
saying ‘don’t worry’ makes half of our illness go. Here we got a doctor
who not only gave a smiling welcome but also made the problem clear to
us. I believe 99 percent doctors don’t even tell the patient what his
problem is. We began to trust him. He listened to us and cleared all our
doubts one by one patiently.
When the medications, the
first option the doctor tried with our consent, didn’t help, he
suggested we should go for surgery. We agreed. Outside the operation
theatre, everyone must be feeling that the clock doesn’t move, all the
bad things will happen to us and what the doctors are tampering with
inside for so long. All ears are alert to listen to the bed number or
the name of their own patient as the security guards call out at regular
interval. We went through the same experience. But the shock came a
little later. As my father’s bed number was called out we almost ran to
the door of the operation theatre only to be told by the young nurse,
the surgery went well and he was fine. Going by the medical ethics, she
showed us the sample they collected from the organ operated upon. When
we asked her how long it would take to get him back to the bed, she said
since spinal anesthesia had been administered it would take another 45
minutes or so for him to come back to his senses completely.
Spinal
Anesthesia! But we had given consent for General Anesthesia! When we
confronted the nurse, she almost ran away saying, “I am telling the
doctor to speak to you.” For another five to ten minutes, none turned up
as we were fuming. How could you administer something when we had given
consent for something else? In fact, the preceding night an anesthetist
had come and as we opted for General Anesthesia, she clearly had
written on the consent form that ‘the patient party is opposed to spinal
anesthesia’. I signed opting for General Anesthesia as, in our family,
we had a bad experience of post operative impact of administration of
anesthesia through spinal cord. We wondered how the doctors could do
otherwise at the operation table. If something went wrong!
After
repeated insistences, a while later I was called inside and a doctor
popped out of a room to introduce himself as head of Anesthesia
department. I really shouted at him and asked for an answer, “Why did
you administer spinal anesthesia when we were opposed to it?” He
reasoned, ‘’I was present there and I thought it to be the best for him
at this age. Rather general anesthesia might cause problem.’’ My next
question, most important of all, was “Even if I accept your argument,
why didn’t you inform us before doing what you thought to be the best.
After all we gave our consent for something else.” He could realize I
was asking him a very logical and ethical question and not just shouting
at him. He looked down and found an answer, “I asked the patient at the
operation table. He said yes to spinal anesthesia.” His answer really
amused me! “Do you think the patient who is at the operation theatre for
the first time in his life would be mentally strong enough to
understand the difference and give his consent at that moment? I had
signed the consent papers and I must have been told what changes you
were making. If something went wrong who would have been responsible?”
The doctor promised to own the responsibility but I knew what had to
happen have happened. Administering spinal anesthesia is easier for the
doctors and may be for some patients with some medical difficulties.
Fortunately
so far nothing is wrong with my father after he has been discharged
from the hospital. It may be so the spinal anesthesia won’t, probably,
create much problem for him. But the point I was fighting for that day
is why the hospital authority should not inform the relatives of the
patient when they had to go against the consent. If that young nurse
would not have told us, probably we would come back satisfied with the
fact, a wrong one, he was operated under general anesthesia. We had
fortunately got an excellent doctor in a famous hospital; still we had
to face this. I wonder what happens in other places and in 99 per cent
of the cases!
Last evening I came across a story of a
12 year old boy who had sudden attack of epilepsy during a simple
operation of tonsillitis and went into coma. The doctors claim the
parents didn’t inform them that the boy had a history of epilepsy and it
went wrong. The parents claim they didn’t know about it and the doctors
didn’t carry the pre-operative tests properly. Reports suggest the
hospital could not produce any consent paper which had the signature of
the parents.
Most of us lack medical knowledge. We
don’t know what the actual procedure is and in most of the cases we are
snubbed by the hospital authority and the doctors for asking a question,
may be a right one. We seriously need an awareness programme and
government kiosks at every hospital for layman like us to clear certain
complicated issues so that none can cheat us, take us for granted at the
hospitals and make us fool. Will the Consumer Affairs department always
be in a sleeping mode?
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