The orthopedics outpatient department (OPD) of the hospital near where I live is always full of people. The last time I went there, I counted 109 people. Not all of them were patients. Some were accompanied by patients – ‘attendants’ according to hospital terminology. So, though it is spacious, the OPD gets crowded.
The patient waiting area has 16 rows of four chairs each; So only 64 people can sit there. Some patients are in wheelchairs. Others have to stand. That’s why there is often a scramble for seats.
It was a particularly busy and overcrowded OPD that day. Orthopedic patients are always easy to identify – some of them have splints on one or more limbs, some have cervical collars for their necks, and some have ortho belts around their chest or waist. Generally, the available seats are given to the patients. I have seen ‘hand’ matters rising up and ‘leg’ matters offering their seats. But there were many ‘leg’ cases that day as all the seats were occupied.
The nurse on duty made the announcement on the public address system, “Abubakar”. This was a sign that Abubakar’s waiting period was over and he would be the next person to see one of the doctors. In a seat in the farthest corner of the OPD, Abubakar, a frail, was plastered on both legs. A young, well-built man, apparently his son, who was standing and dozing nearby, became active when he heard his father’s name. He jumped up, shouted, “Coming, sister” from his father’s side and began to look for a wheelchair for his father. The nurse could not hear him because of the noise and distance. Once again he called out, “Abubakar, isn’t he here?”
What worries you the most is when, after a long wait, when you are almost there, you lose your position in the queue. Abubakar Jr must have felt this pain. He did a lot in a single moment – he shouted again and told the sister that he was there, he shouted to get the attention of a ward boy who was driving an empty wheelchair nearby and he told his father to get ready. Screamed for He must have decided at that very moment that it would be pointless to wait for him to be brought to the wheelchair. So, he breaks through the crowd to be near his father, physically picks him up and takes him to the doctor.
He did not see the other ward boy pulling out a young boy holding two long aluminum crutches from a nearby plaster room. He did not see the old woman getting up from her seat slowly. He did not see the girl running away with a plaster on her right hand to occupy the vacant seat.
But I, watching all this from my corner, clearly saw how he hit the young boy’s crutches, how his legs got tangled in the wheel of the wheelchair, how he tried to get up and collided with the old woman and the girl. Gone-in-plaster and spread down with two falling on top of it.
The young man was crying in so much pain that a doctor and a nurse ran from their respective police stations. One glance fell on her and the doctor ordered that she be immediately taken to the Accident and Trauma Center (ATC), which had arrived by now. “Who is this patient’s attendant?” asked the sister. Abubakar, who was astonished, said, “I… I am his father.” “Okay,” said the nurse, “quickly go to ATC with her.”
Thus the patient Abubakar became the casual attendant Abubakar that day.