Tuesday, July 30, 2019

My First Day As A Hospital Manager

I was appointed as the manager of a private hospital newly acquired by one of my old but rich doctor friends.
He does his consultation only in the latter half of the day and he requested me to go and find the running problems.

The old doctor who was over 80 years, did come to the hospital and sat in his chair and started seeing patients, only a few in number.
I was not sure he had forgotten that he had sold it outright to my friend or whether he is expecting a job from the new administration or totally demented to understand that he had sold the assets.
 
Anyway, it was a blessing in disguise and I thought of looking at the sanitary facilities.

A little boy came for testing of a urine sample.
 
I volunteered getting the sample and picked him up from his mother’s hand and walked to the toilet with the mother following me closely behind.
I could not enter it with filth coming under the door.
I went looking for another and that was even worse.
I handed over the kid to the mother and was looking for a conservancy labourer (that's how they are called in this blessed land) to order the cleaning job.
Then a guy came in front of me and I quickly figured he was one of them and asked him to do the cleaning.
 

Then the matron intervened me and said he was fired yesterday.
 
I said never mind.

He is reinstated but “You are fired from this moment”.
 
Then for my bad luck my entire family (only time I had seen the entire family in one place) has come to see me and all of them were sleeping in two bed rooms hastily made, one for males and one for females.
I went for the back door of the bed room to secure it but before I could reach their, I saw a female attendant was entering through it.

I told her to go home for today and when she comes the next day, bring a letter why she came through that door as an explanation.
 

The sister intervened and said “she was appointed the very day” and I told her never mind, she goes home.
 

The sister and the new attendant were snooping on our family instead of looking after the patients.
Or may be the previous occupants may have been screwing them in that room.
 
That is how it operates in Ceylon.

I decided to give a running commentary (report) to the new boss, but did not expect the worst of scenarios to happen.
I related the first story.
He was not moved.
I related the second story.

Before I could finish, his face became blue and he hit the floor, face down.
He was dead or he had a heart attack.
 

The pressure got to him. too.
 

The third he knew that my resignation was coming fast.
 

I ran to the bed room where my family was resting to say to them “that we are leaving right now”.

That was the first time in my life, I left a patient unattended, mind you my boss and I ran home.

With the shame of not attending to my old friend and my boss. I woke up cross with me.

Mind You, this was a real dream.

I have interspersed a few items in real life and reader is free to guess.
 

It actually illustrates how a hospital is run its day to day affairs.
This is the answer to my friends who asks me “Why I do not see patients in my twilight years”.

It is a stressful job.

Now I enjoy looking after the rooftop garden and feeding the fish.

Both these hates were given up but a few guppies remain in the fish tank to control mosquitoes.
Looking at the birds who frequent the little garden is a by product of having a water garden.
They come to clench their thirst and some of them including chameleon gobble my fish.