AIIMS DIARY 29/07/2010

Today I felt a terrible pain in my soul. I am getting closer and closer to the ruthless realities of our existence.
One of our CanKids Sumit who was suffering from Blood Cancer finally died in horrible pain. I got the information when his father came to us and started crying. We went to Emergency and the chaotic run started.
The doctor in Emergency told us that we cannot take the body right away as we need to get necessary papers made. The father said that he will like to take the body back to his village in Bihar. But he cannot afford the cost of the Ambulance.
I went to the Social Service Unit for help. AIIMS has no such facility. We convinced the parents to cremate the body in Delhi.
The dead body of 5 years old Sumit was being wrapped and I couldn’t get courage to look at the face as his father already told me that the eyes literally came out at the time of death. He said that now he doesn’t have a single rupee left and he is all under debt. His cute little 2 years old daughter was smiling through all this when he told me that her bone marrow was also taken twice to save his brother. One of our Social Worker started crying and I felt a lump in my throat. I went back to the main cancer unit and told the parents to wait for the formalities to be done.
Half an hour later he came and told us that the body has been sent to Mortuary and we can get body only after 2 hours. I sent them to home to take rest & went for my ward visit. When I came back it was raining heavily and the father was waiting all drenched in water. He told us that the Mortuary refused to give body as the doctor has made it a Medico-Legal case and now the police will handle the issue.
I went to Emergency to talk to doctor and he said that the patient was brought dead so he is just following the rules. Though I believed that Sumit was alive when he came, but I didn’t say anything. I went back to the father and explained the complications of a democratic hospital.
I went to the Mortuary and requested for the dead body. The guy in-charge was happily sitting in the royal posture keeping his legs mounted on the mortuary files. He refused and told us that all the routes to get the dead body go through the Police Station.
I went to the AIIMS police station with the parents. Six constables were playing cards sitting on a big table. Others were religiously following the game. One of the half-naked police men told me that I must make a request to the doctor to change the case into non-legal.
We went back to Emergency. Doctor refused to so anything.
We went back to Social Service Unit. The Medical Social Service Officer was also helpless.
We went back to Police Station and an omniscient Police man said that he already knew that we will come back. I didn’t waste time in asking him that why he didn’t enlightened us and asked for the final solution. We were told that the matter had been reported to Sarojini Nagar Police Station so now we will have to go there.
We went to SN Police Station. To my surprise, here the Policemen behaved much nicely and politely explained their lengthy procedure. Sumit’s father couldn’t write anything with his shaking hands so I had to write an application on his behalf mentioning the name, age & address of his son almost 5 times as the constable was instructing me. Then the head constable wrote two more testimonials and all papers were signed up. I was little relived as he told me that the Post-mortem can be avoided now.
Finally we were told that now after just one more signature we will get the final paper. Sumit’s father went to some other office with a constable on the bike and I waited in the Police station.
After 1.5 hours they came back. The constable told us that the concerned authority is not present so we will have to come again tomorrow to the Police Station.
So finally we had to leave Sumit’s body in the Mortuary for the night. And I don’t know how many more steps a dejected father will have to take to get his son’s dead body tomorrow.

May be this was not enough for the day. When I went in the cancer ward I found another 4 year boy Sidhhant who is struggling to survive. His thin body was connected with so many tubes & wires surrounded with all kinds of monitors. We talked to his father and tried to give many useless logics to not feel sad. During all our conversation, every two minutes a machine was making warning signal and the brother of the patient was trying to adjust the oxygen cap. I could see the heart beat of the child pushing out every time from his skin. Finally we had to go out in the gallery where we tried to know if the father has the idea that his son has a very feeble chance to recover. He could say nothing and tried to stop his tears. I felt that the next moment we will cry together. Suddenly we heard the group of paramedical staff laughing together in full volume who were busy sharing a joke few moments ago. This alien sound departed us for the day and I kept thinking that how I will prepare myself for the next day. I am not sure how our little Sidhhant will bear his being.

Somehow I had my dinner tonight and I tried not to think about all this. But
I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy whom I saw the other day at the Pediatric OPD. This little cancer patient tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out of the DTC bus while coming to AIIMS with his father. Our Psychologist was trying to talk to him and he refused to have even an eye contact. I can still recall his life-less eyes struggling between a hair-less skull and a ruthless green mask.

It is pain all over. To live is to suffer????