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Spice of Life | Guardians of humanity, angels on earth
After landing in Cancun late in the evening, we met the hosts and relatives excitedly before retiring to our room to catch some-need rest before the festivities began the next morning. About 1am, however, my wife developed a medical condition, making it difficult for her to sleep. We contacted the in-house nurse, who suggested that we go to a hospital, which was about 15 kms away.
In November last year, we were invited to the wedding of my wife’s niece in Mexico. The family had made elaborate arrangements at a beachside resort in Cancun city of Mexico. Mexico, famous for the Mayan civilisation, the Chichen Itza archaeological site and surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, is also the land of tacos, tortillas and tequilas.
After landing in Cancun late in the evening, we met the hosts and relatives excitedly before retiring to our room to catch some-need rest before the festivities began the next morning.
About 1am, however, my wife developed a medical condition, making it difficult for her to sleep. We contacted the in-house nurse, who suggested that we go to a hospital, which was about 15 kms away.
We stepped into the taxi with trepidation, unprepared to tackle a medical situation in an unfamiliar terrain.
Upon reaching the hospital, however, we couldn’t find a doctor with the desired specialisation. We visited three other hospitals but to no avail. It was quite late in the night and we were advised by the on-duty doctor at one of the hospitals to come back around 11am.
We went back to the resort, took some rest and again started looking for a specialist doctor at various hospitals. It was daytime now and fear had vanished to a great extent but it being a Saturday, the doctors were available only till 2pm and almost all of them had their appointment diaries full for the day. Requests for out-of-turn or walk-in appointments were turned down with standard reply, “I understand your problem but can’t help you as of now, please fix an appointment for the next week.”
We were completely exasperated when we decided to visit the one hospital whose receptionist was nice even when we had visited them in the night. The person manning the reception spoke to the specialist concerned on the intercom and told us to immediately go to her room in the next building as her duty timings were over and she was about to leave. We hurried up and reached the reception of the next building in no time but the language barrier and issues of pronunciation came to the fore again and we had to spend quite a while explaining as to which doctor we wanted to meet.
Before the receptionists could understand anything, an elegant and intelligent-looking doctor came towards the reception and said, “You’re probably looking for me.”
We heaved a sigh of relief as the language barrier melted. She casually mentioned that most Indians looked like Mexicans, understood the problem and took just 10 minutes to carry out the necessary medical procedure. As we thanked her profusely for attending to us without an appointment and beyond her working hours, she graciously said it was part of her job and charged us the basic minimum rate prescribed by the hospital. Empathy and compassion were clearly visible in her sparkling gaze.
After scampering for about 6 hours in search of a female specialist doctor, we had finally met a person who wasn’t just a doctor but also a compassionate human being, going beyond the call of duty. Thank you, Dr Citlali Panama Flores, you are an Angel. Doctors and human beings like you make this world a better place to live in and restore our faith in humanity.
The writer is an IRS officer posted in Mumbai and can be reached at sharmaajay25@yahoo.co.in.
