"Why my doctor paid for my taxi"

Written by Minati Pradhan
“Madam, the cab is waiting,” informed the surgery assistant. Surprised, I looked at him.
“How did you manage to get a cab so soon?” Those days getting a cab past midnight on the road was really tough; maybe you would find one in front of the railway station or airport. It was pre Ola-Uber era.
Instead of replying, he said, “Please board the cab, it is very late.”
I boarded the cab and was taking a bite of the sandwich and sipping the fruit juice handed over to me by the assistant.“Doctor sent it,” he said and warned us not to pay for the taxi, as it was already paid for by the doctor.
We were wondering why he had to pay.
It was past midnight. I was returning from the hospital where I had gone for a check-up around 8 pm. Something had gone terribly wrong in my first surgery, necessitating a second one. And this was the follow-up was after the second surgery. I was going to see the surgeon for regular check-ups, as the surgical wound was not healing despite taking more than 2 dozen of different antibiotics in the form of tablets, injections and ointments (my body was behaving very strangely), astonishing the doctors’ team. That day also a small procedure was done.
My surgeon and the senior consultant surgeon- both experienced surgeons, were worried and tried to hide their anxiety from me. At times the surgeon used to jokingly say, “When will you become all right? Your issue is the toughest of all the patients that I have treated in my fifteen years of career.” The senior would joke, “Bring your horoscope, we need to check it.”
I would just smile and think they are doing it to just reduce my pain. We reached home comfortably.
The next visit was just two days after that day’s incident. “When did you reach home? Was it very painful to travel after that procedure? You must have been very hungry. Sorry, the previous patient took more time than we anticipated as we had to perform surgery immediately.”
“Was that why you paid the taxi fare?” I asked in my usual childish way. I never hesitate to ask anything.
“No, but the delay happened from my side,” the doctor explained.
“But, Doctor, you arranged food and vehicle in the middle of the night. we are grateful for that,” argued my husband. “Anyway, you don’t charge any fees for consultation, only the surgery fees.”
“It’s my duty to make each patient all right, not to collect fees. I do it for everyone.”
“We are aware of that, doctor. We would have visited at least twenty-five to thirty times and have not paid a rupee for consultation. But paying taxi fare? We are not feeling good about it. Please accept the money.”
At last, hesitantly he accepted the money.
I am narrating this incident as I have never seen another Doctor like him who works very hard for at least 14 to 18 hours a day. He has no scheduled time to take rest, he sleeps only when all the surgeries and consultations are over. When he gets some time in between the surgeries, he just closes his eyes and relaxes on a couch in a corner inside the operation theatre. Even on holidays, he goes to rural areas to perform free surgery for poor patients. In
the evenings, he sees more than twenty recovering and pre-surgery patients for free and he attends to urgent and unplanned surgery. Still, you won’t find a trace of irritation on his face, even though he talks less, his smile and listening ears make the patients feel better.
Unlike other doctors, he would ask about the hospital preference of the patient so that it becomes easy for their relatives to attend to them. Unless he is performing a surgery, he would pick up the call and answer himself. When in surgery, the assistant will pick up and tell us the time when we can call.
Incidentally, I had to undergo a third surgery for some related issues. Despite my two surgeries going wrong, we preferred the third one to be done by him as we had never come across such a doctor. Not even within his own team of juniors and seniors. My relatives were rueing for choosing him as my surgeon, but our faith in him made it all possible to come out victorious after the third surgery, clearing all the complications.
He is also very humble and down to earth. During the period of almost one and a half years that we were consulting him for my health issues, he never showed off. It is only later from his assistant we came to know that that he was a close relative of the then finance minister of India.
I learnt a lot from him. Now, even after one and a half decades, we do seek his suggestions when someone in the family needs any kind of surgery. We took his advice in an emergency when my partner had to undergo surgery at a different place.
When most people in high positions, doctors, and even distant relatives of politicians will show of their status or connections and most doctors will be perennially hungry for money, only a few doctors like him are true to this noble profession. They work tirelessly for the benefit of the suffering people sans being bothered about the glam that money, power and position offer.
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