REC Calicut Campus is spread over almost 400 acres and nearly 500 or more families were staying in the campus even in the 70s. Number of residents including teaching, nonteaching staff and students were more than 2000 at that time itself. We have a small health centre for immediate medical attention to the residents. Two doctors, two nurses, a pharmacist and an attender were available as staff members. Five beds were available for inpatients in our mini-hospital. One of the doctors, designated as Resident Medical Officer used to stay in the campus. RMO is supposed to attend to any case emergency round the clock. Most of the common medicines were available and if medicines are to be bought from outside, medical reimbursement of the expenses were available, if it is purchased with prescription of the medical officers. If the patient requires specialised help or hospitalization, the doctors used to send the patient to Calicut Medical College in the college vehicle, if available.
But one major problem we were
facing was that very few doctors who took up the job remained with us for long.
The remuneration was not good enough obviously. Few doctors who joined were
from health services who have retired as senior physicians, mostly doing administrative
work like DMO. Most of these doctors were taking up this job as a leisurely one
just to while away the time. It was after such a big break that we got a doctor
couple in the campus. Dr. P.C.George was
a former District Medical Officer and his wife a gynaecologist. Dr.George joined as
our RMO and his wife took up a
job in a nearby hospital outside. Dr George was hailing from Mavelikkara and he
belonged to an eminent family including
Dr.P.C. Varghese, Professor of Civil
Engineering and later Director of I.I.T. Madras and Dr, Varghese Kurien (Amul
Kurien) responsible for the white
(milk) revolution in India. Our doctor was hardly 5 ft in height, quite heavily
built, regular dress white kurta and
dhoti. While he walks up, it will look
like a small elephant slowly walking towards you. But he was a very
kind doctor and loved by all, especially the teaching staff of the college. He
had just one child, grown up, occasionally seen with them as she was studying
elsewhere. But Dr.George loved the
campus children very much and he was ready
to play with them with his hefty body. While going for an evening walk, we
could see him chit chatting with some one sitting on a culvert on the main road
sharing his experience with those willing to hear. Often, I was also a listener
to his stories.
To me and my family, he was
more than a doctor, a father figure and member of our family. Once he asked me
“Hey Mohandas, what is the point of you people from Kuttanad, the granary of
Kerala, coming here and living on the ration rice? After 30 - 40 years of
working here, what you will have will be a few kids and some broken chairs.
Here, you will have to spend whatever you get for purchasing rice, vegetables
and gas and practically nothing left. If you work in a place near your native
place, even if the salary is less, you can eat good food and live happily
saving what you get.” Yes, to a certain extent this was true, we were just 8
hours travel from our native village. But think of the thousands of Keralites
working in faraway places like Assam and Delhi for their daily bread.
Let me share a few personal incidents
with that loving elderly father figure.
As you know, the early
mornings are always the busiest time in our families, particularly for the
mother of the house. Children have to go to school, their breakfast, take away
parcel for lunch to be made ready, giving them bath if they are too small,
keeping their uniform ready etc and in between
satisfying the demands of the husband for several cups of tea. It was
such a day for us, both our children get up early along with their mother and
they were playing near the back door. Our son’s favourite game was to play with opening and closing
the doors and our daughter occasionally joined
him in this game. Usually they will be waiting for the Newspaper to
be collected and compete in who
is the first to collect the paper and give to their dad. During this time, playing at the front door. Suddenly we
heard our daughter crying our “Mummy, my finger is gone”. As I approached her,
I found her little finger of the right hand was caught inside the door.
Carefully I released her finger but more than 80 % of the finger was crushed and was hanging out. I
took her in my arms and rushed to our RMO’s house. Fortunately, he was present in his house. I knocked at his
door, a bit rudely, and I heard him shouting “Who is this fellow troubling me
in the early morning?” . As he opened
the door and saw me with the child all his anger vanished. The hospital staff
will come only by 9AM. He took the bunch of keys and we walked up to the
hospital. He opened the dressing room
and started giving a few stitches on her little finger. As the third stich was
applied, part of her finger became bluish as blood circulation was difficult. Doctor
said “It seems your daughter will have to live with nine fingers, any way let
me try.” He carefully released the third stich, took a plaster and made a pad
out of it and kept the pad below the finger and applied a soft bandage. He said
we will wait for 24 hours and if you are lucky, the finger will be saved. We returned home, her
little brother was really scared and was on the point of breakdown when he
saw his sister with bandage. He knew
that something wrong has happened to his sister and as he was responsible for
that obviously the feeling of guilt rather than due to his mother’s scolding.
We were eagerly waiting for the day to be passed and next day we took her to
the hospital. Fortunately, as the bandage was
removed, we found normal colour has slowly come back to the finger.
Thanks to the timely intervention of our dear doctor, her finger was saved. He
said jokingly “ Now that your daughter
will have all fingers, please send half
the dowry that you must have saved for
the wedding of the girl with nine fingers.”
If it was any other younger doctor, it was almost certain that only a
stub would have remained on her little finger.
After a few months, only a small scar remained over the wound. She must
be remembering her brother whenever she looks at her small finger , though she
may not remember the doctor who saved it. As
parents, we can never forget his
kindness .
On some other occasion, when
my wife and daughter had an attack of chicken pox, he helped us with his kind words and timely treatment.
As I had already been exposed to chicken
pox and could get leave for taking care
of them, it was not very
difficult. Even our maid servant was
kind enough to work for us while they
were bedridden. Our doctor used to
remark that those who gets chicken pox, should eat chicken at least after the
initial five days of fever .
However, some of our colleagues, especially those
among the non-teaching staff, were not happy with him. Those who approached him
for fake medical certificate for taking
leave or sign the medical reimbursement papers for medicines brought by them
without prescription were among this group. They were trying to get a chance to oust him. An opportunity
came up as one child of a UD clerk got burns on her arms and doctor applied
some medicine and send her home. But it seems the kid’s mother applied some
country medicine over the burnt area and it became septic soon. The child’s
parents and his friends complained to the authorities that this was due to the
negligence of our campus doctor. The Principal ordered an enquiry into this
incident and our doctor did not wait for the enquiry but resigned the job
telling that “I don’t want your pittance of the remuneration that you are
giving, I can work elsewhere if you don’t want me.”. After he left, we had to
wait for several years for an RMO to take care of the residents of the
campus. We heard that he and his wife
had several years of active medical care in his native place Mavelikkara after
he left REC
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