HUMANITARIAN APPROACH

HUMANITARIAN APPROACH PAYS

The period- is just when I had switched to Eye Practice from General Practice.
The practice was just picking up – a polite term for “ee-otting “.
One day a lady patient- wife of a bank employee- one of my regular and loyal patients -came to me for treatment of severe ‘Conjunctivitis’ in both eyes and I prescribed the necessary treatment.
She said she was waiting for her husband, implying that she didn’t have money to pay me.
I told her it is alright.
When the time came for closing the clinic I found her still waiting.
I told her she can pay me later.
As she was on the point of leaving I wondered how she can buy the medicine and asked her whether she had an account with the medical shop. When she denied, I got back my prescription, paid money to my clinic boy and asked him to buy the medicine from the shop in spite of her protests.
I verified the medicines bought, detailed her how to instill the eye drops and went home.
At about 11 p.m. her husband came to our house, thanked me profusely and paid Rs.100/- note to me.
When I asked him why he came at the odd hour to pay me instead of waiting for the next day he said his wife had bombarded him like anything and asked him to pay the entire money tome immediately. She didn’t even allow me to freshen up, he said, grinning.
I told him he had paid a lot of money [in those days Rs.100/- went a long way] and I have to pay him back the change.
He will hear none of it. “We will talk about it later, sir” he said.” Thanks for everything”.
Thereafter I became their patron doctor for everything.