When all else fails, the doctor tells the patient’s kin “ab to inko sirf dua hi bacha sakti hai (only prayers can help the patient).” The relatives turn to the nearest temple, mosque or church, pray their heart out and, miracle of miracles, life is infused in the terminally ill patient.
Sounds like a scene from a Bollywood potboiler? It is!
The non-believers may chaff at the idea of prayers performing miracles, but a doctor in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district believes that they play an equally important role in healing a person. While writing the names of the medicines, Dr Dinesh Sharma also prescribes reading Hunuman Chalisa and visit to temples to the patients who visit him for consultation.
A prescription slip he issued to a patient on October 13 is circulating on the social media. In the first four prescriptions on the slip issued to Shekhar, a television repair mechanic for stomach ache, Sharma, a retired government doctor, has named medicines. The fifth prescription asks the patient to read the Hanuman Chalisa every day, visit temples and take part in aarti.
Sharma, 69, was a senior government physician before he took voluntary retirement in 1998 and set up his own clinic in Ranjeet Nagar on the railway station road. He sees patients at the clinic twice a day. Most of his patients are from rural areas, who, he advises, along with medicines, a little dose of spirituality for quick recovery.
{{/usCountry}}Sharma, 69, was a senior government physician before he took voluntary retirement in 1998 and set up his own clinic in Ranjeet Nagar on the railway station road. He sees patients at the clinic twice a day. Most of his patients are from rural areas, who, he advises, along with medicines, a little dose of spirituality for quick recovery.
{{/usCountry}}“I do this for psychological satisfaction of the patients,” says Sharma. “Spirituality makes the recovery faster -- the medicines work better for patients who have the psychological will to get well.”
Sharma said he prescribes the “spiritual dose” to most of his patients.
He said most of his patients come to him after having visited quacks. “They have already taken medicines from quacks in rural areas. Some of them are ill due to stress. I advise them to visit temple and read Hanuman Chalisa to relieve their stress, which makes them feel better,” Sharma adds.