The Swollen Finger

One year ago , As a part of Internship programme I was posted in Rural Hospital OPD when  a old man around age of 80 entered the room. As a usual question I asked in Hindi (as from his appearance & personality it took me no time to know that he belonged to Islamic community) “kya takleef hai chacha ?” He replied in calm voice “kuch nahi sahab machine aajkal bahot dard deti hai ”  Well at first I couldn’t understand what machine he was referring to so I asked  “konsi machine ?” With a little smile he said ,”Aur konsi yahi 80 saal purani jo aapke samne baithi hai ” That old man was referring himself as a machine so I said ,”Thoda tel~pani aur dekh bhal acche se kiya karo nahi dard degi ”

Just after my sentence he started explaining how he & his wife manages their daily expenses with no help or support either emotional or financial from his only son. Stopping him in the middle I asked him to tell his medical problems & then  he started telling  his medical  illnesses one by one .This time I didn’t disturbed him & after 5 min I came to know he was a known case of hypertension , Arthritis & Hansen’s disease with operated cataract in Rt. Eye, Impaired Hearing  & his primary concern was  a swollen middle finger of Rt. Hand  due to some trauma . On examination it doesn’t seem to have to any fracture of phalanges. So I very eagerly looking at the queue infront of my opd door  wrote down his antihypertensives , painkillers (NSAIDS) , antacid  & gel with advice for X-ray of that finger.

After 5 min he came again with complaint that he didn’t got any of the medicine from my prescription as there were no “essential medicine “as per Govt.norms in that RH pharmacy. He didn’t had any money to purchase it from outside pharmacy ,so I gave him some medicines from my bag & asked to purchase antihypertensives at least . After that he thanked me & went away. I doubt he had purchased any antihypertensives. Later many patients came with similar complaint of no availability of drugs in the pharmacy .

Just few days back government of Maharashtra issued a GR that before appearing for your post graduation after MBBS you have to do mandatory 1 year Rural Service. Many doctors started raising voice against it not for the fact that they don’t want to work in rural area but due to conditions of rural hospitals & poor facilities for patients that many of the patients remain undertreated. 

The swollen finger was just a single example of the rural condition but there are thousands of swollen fingers in the community waiting & hoping for good healthcare & infrastructure .