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AIDS and hospitals: No bed for a patriot

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Damayanti Datta
Damayanti DattaSep 15, 2014 | 11:55

AIDS and hospitals: No bed for a patriot

Let's keep his name a secret. He is a 63-year-old man from Kolkata, a husband and a father. For the past one month his life has been one hazy blur of intensive care units, intravenous tubes, monitors and medication. He is now back at home but too weak to speak. Every day, anxious friends and family ask him if he recognises them. A strident atheist all his life, he now has framed gods and goddesses watching over him from the walls of his room. He is in a twilight zone, between life and death.  

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In some ways, he has paid the price of patriotism. An accountant, he has pored over prosaic balance sheets all his life. But in his heart he has always dreamt of doing something for his country. He comes from a family of freedom fighters, where stories and faded photos of legendary leaders they knew - Subhash Bose to Gandhiji - are passed along proudly. Born four years after Independence, he has missed his tryst with that sort of a destiny. But he has compensated for it by donating as much of his blood into the nation's blood banks as he could. That has been his secret passion. "I feel I am doing something for the nation," he would say.

But romanticism did not match reality. Some infected needle, somewhere, allowed a deadly virus to enter his bloodstream: HIV. From January this year, he started losing weight dramatically. Rounds of tests revealed the enemy. "How did you get it?" That's the only thing the smooth-talking corporate hospital doctor asked, before giving a brusque diktat: "Sorry, we can't help you. We don't treat AIDS patients. Try government hospitals." Every private hospital he knocked on slammed right back in his face. That was the beginning. As the AIDS virus ate into his immunity, the treatment stripped him of his dignity. Caught between disbelief and dread, he wracked his brains feverishly: how did he get it? Why are doctors turning him away? How will he sleep, eat, live? Will he put his loved ones at risk? Will his neighbours ask him to leave the apartment, if they get to know? Will his domestic help and driver leave? Should his daughter tell her husband? Weeks passed. He lost 20 more kgs. He still did not have all the answers. Finally, a trip to the Calcutta Medical College became imperative. It was a heaving mass of humanity, with dank, dark corners, garbage-strewn alleys and sickly smell of sweat and disinfectant. He waited at a long queue with a motley crowd-pimps, prostitutes, paupers - as it snaked around the AIDS block. Inside, a stern-faced doctor asked his wife to step out of the chamber. Then started the interrogation: how exactly did he get AIDS? By the time he stumbled out, all colour was gone from his face. The file of reports slipped out of his hand, scattering paper all over. He took a few steps, before his wife realised that his pants were wet.

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He was taken to a host of doctors: some "counselled" him but said no to treatment, some demanded enormous sums of money for "exclusive and private" treatment.

Finally, a doctor agreed to treat him but on condition that he wouldn't visit the hospital: "Send your daughter for consultations." It left the most burning questions on medication, dosage, diet or side-effects only half-answered (who would dare to ask too many questions?) But he was informed categorically that most hospitals in the city would refuse to take him in for treatment, even if he had cancer or a heart attack, ever. Yes, they told him, his blood pressure and cholesterol could rise somewhat, as a side-effect of the treatment. But no one told him how proactively he needed to monitor those. Within a month, he went through a cerebral attack that paralysed the left side of his body and took away vision from his left eye. The city hospital that treated him released him long before he was ready to be cared for at home ("He is fine. We have removed his rice tube. We can't keep him anymore.")

If he gets a second chance at life, he will have to renegotiate a few things he has always taken for granted: his hidden patriotism, his self-esteem and most certainly his respect for that noblest professionals of them all, doctors.

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Last updated: September 15, 2014 | 11:55
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