GMC’s Cardiac Centre

               No one goes to any doctor out of choice. Unless one is a whining hypochondriac, out to cheat the employer/insurance company out of cash, or just plain ill.

No one goes to the GMC unless one is ill.

My maowshee celebrated her 81rst birthday in GMC’s medical ward, in unstable angina pain. Family members dashed in and out carrying tubes of blood for testing and prescriptions.

I have good memories of GMC. Fifteen years ago, my mother’s accidently injured wrist and elbow had been operated upon here. She got back 95 % of her movements; the doctors had predicted 65 %. Are doctors happy to be wrong at such times?

As observed in her previous admissions, I saw (besides dust and grime on the floor) the diligence with which many Nightingales kept track of medicine-consumption, wound-dressing and follow up on test reports. Perhaps my maowshee was lucky to get good ‘sisters’ on shifts; the ethos was better than newspapers’ cribbing reports. If the cleanliness levels could be better, if the moss and grunge are dealt with military meticulousness, the standard of care at GMC would be superior to that in private hospitals. If only Goans would badger the health minister ...

It’s not possible to trust the quality of laundering of linen, so cousin and his wife shuttled to and from their home to keep the patient clad and covered without inviting bacterial/viral trouble.

The results of an angiography indicated a shift to the cardiac ward.  Three trouble-making arteries were blocked: first 99%, second 97%, third 94%. Without surgical invention, she was doomed.

In the cardiac ward, where earlier the private wards were, I found the nurse in charge was duteous. “I allowed you two minutes and now it’s two and a half,” she said sternly but politely to me. Mea culpa, I thought, slinking out, appreciating her attitude.

The following day was the surgery. The cardiac operating room oddly faced the gynaecological ward and OPD. On one side of the corridor, on the floor, against the wall, sat relatives of the patient whose heart was (literally) in the surgical team’s hands; and on the other stood pregnant women with their husbands, mothers-in-law, firstborns and other pregnant women. The cardiac team spent hours bending over my maowshee, skilfully using scalpels, forceps, sutures, reading numbers and graphs on the machines attached to her, tracking levels of anaesthesia, urine output, gases in the blood, etc. I have no idea when or whether the team had breakfast or lunch, for after her, another patient had already been rolled and readied inside.

Most surgeries are successful. Most patients go home fine. For the relatives, there’s a long wait outside the ICU. I managed to squeeze in a seminar on cadaver transplants in the college library to learn about the advances in kidney, liver, heart, pancreas and lung transplants in the country. Goa has an eye-bank, but still needs one for skin (not for pimple-cure - skin-grafts save the lives of severely burned people or those with dreaded skin diseases).

As discharged patients and their eager relatives took taxis or rickshaws home, I saw no reporters covering the success stories: so many complicated, ‘hopeless’ cases went home fine. We never get to hear of or read about them.

I saw two doctors wheel a paediatric patient when the need arose. They did not wait for help to arrive.

A radiologist confided that s/he did the GMC job because it was much more interesting than better-paying private practice. I quote: “I sometimes don’t know what to do on Sundays, so involved am I in what I’m doing.” From what I witnessed that could be true of the cardiac unit staff.

The cardiac ICU was spic and span, and visitors’ discipline (of removing footwear, not consuming food/drink, putting phones on silent-mode) well-maintained. When my maowshee did not recover from post-operative complications, the surgeon took extraordinary pains and time to explain to us what had happened and why. No impatience with our lay queries. An open heart operation (CABG or by-pass) might have added a decade to her lifespan; in her case, unexpected post-operative complications hastened her end.

Maowshee’s body was dressed and transferred to the mortuary with dignity. GMC has PLENTY of room for improvement. Within its limitations, it’s giving its patients remarkable care.

I’d left my bag in the ward. A stranger handed sought a relative and sent it to me. Nothing was missing. Maowshee would have been pleased. I was.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in