Labor pains are so severe that many women cannot bear them. In modern world, they offer labor analgesia so that labor is a happy process. However such happy places are very few in this world. Considering the paucity of anesthesiologists in civic institutes, labor analgesia is given only when some anesthetist wants to make a career in it and wants to master the technique before stepping out into the world to cater to the wealthy types.
The nurses and doctors in the labor room suffer almost as much as the women in pain because of their screams. The overworked personnel sometimes lose their cool in face of such auditory trauma.
"You know what one resident doctor did?" someone asked me.
"What?" I asked obligingly.
"She slapped a screaming woman in labor twice to make her stop screaming."
"Huh?" Slapping would increase the screaming, not decrease it, I thought.
"Not only that, but she locked the patient in the delivery room?"
"Why?" I asked. This seemed very inhuman behavior for a doctor.
"I asked the doctor. She said she did not slap the patient. She just patted her mouth asking her to close it. As for the locking thing - she said she did it because the patient kept going out to meet her husband.
I could understand what the patient was doing. I have seen worse. I have seen women sit in the toilet for the duration of labor, save for the brief periods they were coaxed back to the labor tables. I have seen women go lie down on the floor under the labor tables when the pain became unbearable. I hope the resident doctor will mature one day and learn to bear with such behavior of her patients.
"I had another resident doctor a few years ago. When his patient screamed and screamed, he got angry and touched her nose with the scissors he was holding. 'Shut up or I will cut off your nose' he thundered. Then she shut up."
I was speechless. This was an unorthodox use of episiotomy scissors, bordering on homicidal.
"What is he doing these days?" I asked.
"He is in UK as a consultant obstetrician."
Well, if he tried this stunt there, they might do to him what he threatened to do to the patient, and deport him to India, I thought.
The nurses and doctors in the labor room suffer almost as much as the women in pain because of their screams. The overworked personnel sometimes lose their cool in face of such auditory trauma.
"You know what one resident doctor did?" someone asked me.
"What?" I asked obligingly.
"She slapped a screaming woman in labor twice to make her stop screaming."
"Huh?" Slapping would increase the screaming, not decrease it, I thought.
"Not only that, but she locked the patient in the delivery room?"
"Why?" I asked. This seemed very inhuman behavior for a doctor.
"I asked the doctor. She said she did not slap the patient. She just patted her mouth asking her to close it. As for the locking thing - she said she did it because the patient kept going out to meet her husband.
I could understand what the patient was doing. I have seen worse. I have seen women sit in the toilet for the duration of labor, save for the brief periods they were coaxed back to the labor tables. I have seen women go lie down on the floor under the labor tables when the pain became unbearable. I hope the resident doctor will mature one day and learn to bear with such behavior of her patients.
"I had another resident doctor a few years ago. When his patient screamed and screamed, he got angry and touched her nose with the scissors he was holding. 'Shut up or I will cut off your nose' he thundered. Then she shut up."
I was speechless. This was an unorthodox use of episiotomy scissors, bordering on homicidal.
"What is he doing these days?" I asked.
"He is in UK as a consultant obstetrician."
Well, if he tried this stunt there, they might do to him what he threatened to do to the patient, and deport him to India, I thought.
