"My servant’s wife is coming here from the native place" one of my distant relative was saying to me on the phone. "She has a prolapse problem. I would like you to treat her at your hospital."
"OK. Send her to my outpatient clinic when she arrives" I said.
"This servant is a special one. He has been with us for years."
"I understand" I said. "We treat all patients well. I will give personal attention to her treatment."
The patient arrived in due course. She had a genital prolapse. I advised an operation, and tests for fitness to undergo the operation. The patient ans her husband went away.
"We are a little busy right now, preparing to go abroad" I got a call from that relative the same evening. "We will get those tests done in a few days."
"She can have them done free at my hospital" I said.
"No. I don’t want her to stand in queues there. I will get them done in a private good laboratory near our house."
"OK" I said. It was wonderful to see that people cared so much for their servants.
A month passed. These relatives went abroad. The servant brought his wife to my outpatient clinic.
"Where are the reports of her tests?" I asked.
"I have to get them done in this hospital now" he said.
"But your employer said she would get them done from a private laboratory!" I said.
"She said so, but told me to get them done here after they went abroad."
I kept quiet. A week later they came back with the reports. Her hemoglobin was 7 g%, far lower than safe for undergoing an operation.
"She has to take treatment for her anemia for a month or so" I said. "If the tests had been done a month ago, we could have treated her in the meantime, and she could have undergone an operation now."
"Yes. But madam would not let me bring her to this hospital for tests until she went away. She wanted me to keep working all the time, not spend a couple of days away from her house."
I kept quiet. Both of us understood the situation very well, and nothing would be achieved by voicing our thoughts. I operated on her in due course and she recovered well. But I still think of her husband’s employer whenever she or her husband come to me for any treatment. The said employer is fine in the meantime - no divine justice seems to have been done as one would expect in a novel or a story.
