The orthopaedics outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital close to where I stay, is always teeming with people. The last time I was there, I counted 109 people. Of them not all were patients. Some were accompanying the patients — ‘attendants’ as per the hospital terminology. So, though it is spacious, the OPD looks crowded.
There are 16 rows of four chairs each in the patients waiting area; so only 64 people can be seated there. A few patients are on wheelchairs. Others have to keep standing. Therefore, often there is a scramble for the seats.
That day it was a particularly busy and crowded OPD. It is always easy to identify orthopaedics (ortho) patients — some of them have plasters on one or more limbs, some have cervical collars for their necks, and some have ortho belts around their chests or waists. Generally, the available seats are offered to the patients. I have seen the ‘hand’ cases getting up and offering their seats to the ‘foot’ cases. But on that day, there were many ‘foot’ cases standing as all the seats were occupied.
The nurse on duty announced on the public address system, “Abubakar”. It was a signal that Abubakar’s waiting period had at last come to an end and he would be the next to be seen by one of the doctors. Abubakar, a frail, old man with both legs in plaster, was in a seat at the farthest corner of the OPD. A young, well-built man, apparently his son, who was standing and dozing nearby, was electrified into action when he heard his father’s name called out. He jumped up, shouted, “Coming, sister” on behalf of his father and started looking for a wheelchair for his father. The nurse could not hear him due to all the noise and the distance. Once again she called out, “Abubakar, is he not here?”
One of the most anxious feelings you can ever have is when, after a long wait, when you are almost there, you are likely to lose your position in the queue. Abubakar Junior must have felt this pang. He did many things in one instant — he shouted again to tell the sister that he was there, he shouted to catch the attention of a ward boy who was wheeling an empty wheelchair nearby and he shouted to his father to get ready. He must have decided at that very instant that it would be futile to wait for the wheelchair to be brought to him. So, he broke through the crowd to be near his father, to bodily lift him up and take him to the doctor.
He did not see the other ward boy wheeling out a young boy, holding two long aluminium crutches, from the plaster room nearby. He did not see the old lady get up slowly from her seat. He did not see the girl with a plaster on her right hand rushing to occupy the vacant seat.
But I, who was watching all this from my corner, clearly saw how he crashed into the young boy’s crutches, how his legs got entangled in the wheel of the wheelchair, how he tried to get up and crashed into the old lady and the girl-in-plaster and went sprawling down with the two falling over him.
The young man was crying out in so much pain that a doctor and a nurse rushed out from their respective stations. One look at him and the doctor ordered that he be rushed to the accident and trauma centre (ATC) in the other wheelchair which had arrived by now. “Who is this patient’s attendant,” asked the sister. Abubakar, who was in a daze blurted out, “I… I am his father.” “Good,” said the nurse, “quickly accompany him to the ATC.”
That’s how Abubakar the patient became Abubakar the accidental attendant that day.
