For once, Delhi defeated me
For once, Delhi defeated me. For once, Dilli, meri jaan, kept its dil in an iron cage and bared its selfish fangs. For once, I couldn't protest that Delhi, indeed, is the heartless capital of a corrupt nation.
Apathetic administration, corrupt cops, crass drivers, callous doctors and an user-unfriendly medical system everything that could go wrong did that night. But it had started off well.
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Talk of being patient! Why can't AIIMS ever do it right? file pic |
An NRI kin, flying in from a disciplined Singapore after a year, couldn't believe his eyes as we raced along the flyover from IGI Airport. At 3 am, Delhi was decked up, clean, traffic-less and at her impeccable best. We were cruising along, the NRI relative praising every neat turn, every smooth length. Then, disaster struck.
As I glided down the Dhaula Kuan flyover, slowing to read the direction sigange for Motibagh in the dim light, I missed the carelessly placed concrete slabs in the middle of the road. With no night lights or glow boards, the makeshift "diversion" was screaming accident and I didn't disappoint the DDA or MCD or whichever civic authority official had placed them there. We crashed, stopped, realised one of us had been seriously hurt, and immediately decided to rush to the nearest hospital. Being a South Delhi resident, AIIMS was my first flash. And the hospital was not very far. Help was at hand. But that was not to be.
Trucks blocked the road, the monstrous multi-wheelers had choked every inch of the Ring Road. The drivers said, some cop somewhere was checking their papers and maybe dilly-dallying over the amount of green that passed hands.
After 30 minutes of squeezing in between trucks and ignoring lurid catcalls of truck-drivers, we rushed to AIIMS Emergency. We were in an emergency, but the city's largest and maybe most advanced hospital didn't care.
"Sorry, we don't entertain accident patients here. Take her to the Trauma Centre, near Safdurjung Hospital," said the doctor on duty, without even casting a cursory glace at my bleeding relative. "It's a head injury. Will she even make it to wherever you are asking us to take her?" I screamed, my patience wearing thin. The cold-shoulder hadn't felt so chilly before.
We drove out of AIIMS, took a three kilometre detour, squeezed through the trucks again and into Safdurjung, the city's second largest medical centre. About 10 doctors were sitting at the Casualty Ward but none of them even made an effort to look at us. "No. This is not where you were supposed to come. Go to the Trauma Centre," one of them said, making a mockery of their oaths and their white coats. I didn't even waste time screaming at them that I had come to the right place to a hospital with a patient.
Ten more agonising minutes and a few more pints of bloodloss later, we finally reached the spanking new Trauma Centre with just a lone doctor attending to about 10 accident cases. After 10 more minutes of searching for a clean bed, the overworked junior doctor (without his white coat) took a look at us and the traumatic victim. About 10 more minutes were wasted in paperwork at the registration counter where a boy of about 15 sat shuffling papers. Maybe the government was catching them young.
Once my relative had been taken care of and we finally breathed a long sigh of relief, my NRI kin spat out in disgust, "This city, this country is not worth living. Worthless!"
Protest stung my throat, patriotism threatening to burst out. But I kept silent, my head hanging in shame.
We make this city, this country. We are "worthless."u00a0
