India Medicine

The Indian medical system just makes me laugh.  I have been to an urgent care that was unreal.  I had a 5 year old who needed stitches in his chin.  We were led into a room that was the size of a small walk-in closet.  I lifted him onto the examination table.  The sheet was green and dirty.  I mean spotted with blood, dirt and grime.  The wall was also covered with blood, dirt and grime.  Awful.  The intern opened the supposed sterile gauze out of the container with his hands and wiped the wound.    Oh my!!  I picked up the child and left.  We took care of the wound at our clinic.

Dr. Susan Hilton is the medical director here at Rising Star.  She is a native to Chennai and named after the English missionary who converted her Hindu Grandfather to Christianity.   She has 20 years experience in the ER and teaches at one of the local medical universities.   I am very grateful I was blessed to meet and work with her.  She is a Seventh Day Adventist and very devout.   She often teaches me the goodness of Jesus Christ.  Her motto is “We treat – God heals” .  She is presently working in the ER dept. at the University hospital and comes here at 4:00 every day to see and treat the children. 

So the yearly hospital inspection is this month.  They are not told it is coming but somehow it leaks to hospital officials.  Most hospitals are understaffed so there is a market that exists where doctors are called in to work during the inspection so the hospital appears to be fully staffed.  There is even a broker who arranges how many they need and when they show up for the day.  The doctor will be paid a full months salary for working that one day.  Some doctors live very well just going from hospital to hospital. 

On one inspection a few of the nurses were stranded in traffic and couldn’t get to work on time and they knew they would be in big trouble because administration doesn’t want to look bad on inspection day.  So they called and explained the situation.  They were worried about signing in for work on time.  The nurse who was there said don’t worry; I will sign you in right now. 

Then there was a meeting where an administrator said it was OK to lie but he wanted all the staff to meet and decide what to say so everyone had the same lie. 

Dr. Susan and I laughed and laughed.