Bill Section

There was no reason to know that there would be a bill section in our hospital, and to believe that I would have an occasion to go there any time. But that is where I have been sitting for the last five months when not treating patients or teaching students. This room is one of the offices on the fifth floor of the cardivovascular building. The administration could not find any other place for me to sit and do office work, while they repaired my wards and offices in the old building. The other option was to put my handkerchief on the floor of the main corridor of the hospital and sit there, like many relatives of patients do when the benches are full. I was tempted to do that because it would have been quite convenient. It takes a half hour to reach bill section and go back to the starting point in my transit ward at present. I did not do it because my colleagues said it would have looked terrible. The clerk who manages bills sits right next to me, and I answer his clients when he is away. I have to guide them to the next room, where his colleagues sit. Some of the clients argue that they have been guided to see him in this room only. Then I am helpless. I have to tell them to wait until he comes back, whenever. They ask me when he will come back, and I have to say God knows, because he does not always tell me when he would be back. One of our old assistant engineers, now happily retired, came along the other day looking for him. He found me instead, but did not recognize me because I was in a wrong setting. “You haven't recognized me” I said. He looked at me again and exclaimed “Oh! What are you doing here, Sir?” “They have transferred me from my post of head of gynecology to the bill section” I said with a straight face. “Now I take out bills.” He was stunned for a couple of seconds. Then he realized that it couldn't have happened. Finally I explained the situation to him. He went away shaking his head, muttering “whatever next”. I must say I am actually enjoying my tenure in the bill section. There is less time-wasting traffic of people into my office because it is so far away from the heart of things. Only people who genuinely need to see me visit this place. The air is purer than in my first floor office where dust would come in from construction work all the time. There is less noise pollution too, since the clerks in the offices nearby don't make as much noise as patients' relatives did near my old office. The toilet is marginally cleaner, and well away from the place where I sit, so that there is no stink around. The only negative point is that I am in the bill section, but cannot bill them and make a bit of money myself. :-)