Humanity Above Profession

The noblest profession of a doctor has become the most corrupt business in the prevailing scenario. Private nursing homes are raking in the moolah. Barring a few hospitals run by governments, the condition inside these hospitals is awfully appalling and inhumane in terms of cleanliness and the attitude of the doctors attending to patients is rather cavalier. So much so even interns are cocky yet the patient there feels that he will go home without being fleeced.

The profession, once regarded as a holy task assigned by God, has now gone obnoxiously dirty where medical practitioners have got nothing to do with life of a patient except for the fact that they have no reservations about stealing vital organs. Amidst all this medical chaos and melodrama, there are still a handful of doctors who live for a cause. They derive satisfaction out of helping those needing help irrespective of being rich or poor; they just serve mankind and humanity is their religion.

Dr Vinay Kumaran, a senior surgeon at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram hospital is one such doctor who has performed more than 650 liver transplants so far. Dr Kumaran an alumnus of MAMC, who did his MS (PG) from AIIMS, went to New York and spent good three years doing research into this subject. The doctor shared a lot of moments by which he was moved. He talks about one such an incident that he still holds close to his heart. “Though I’ve performed hundreds of child liver transplants, I find it a more challenging job because of clotting in these cases that thins the chances of survival. I had such a case of a family in Jordan, that girl was in a critical state. Her father moved all over the place from Germany to the UK but to no avail. When they came to me I took it as a challenge as most of the part of her liver was damaged. When I asked them to bring the patient to India they declined as the chances were remote. I went to Jordan with them, brought her here and performed surgery upon her and sent her walking healthy,” Dr Vinay reminisces.

This 8-10 hour long operation takes two teams comprising six surgeons attending upon both the patient and the donor at the same time. The operation expenditure comes around 19 -20 lakh and the donor should preferably be from the same family as the patient is and between the age 18 and 55.

Lately Dr Kumaran has had such a case from Pakistan where the doctors threw up their hands in despair. Finally, the patient and his family came to India and went straight to Delhi’s Gangaram.

“I am Syed Seabtay Abbas Zaidi 52. I’ve come from Hyderabad, Sind, Pakistan. I work with a blade manufacturing unit. Of late, I have too often had the tendency of vomiting; fever hovered between 99 and 100. The worst came when I started losing weight drastically and no appetite was left. I ate only to throw up. I, a couple of times, coughed blood that was rather panicky. I consulted running from one doctor to another. The diagnosis reads that my liver has badly been affected and needs an immediate transplant. Well, this is due to washing and coating blades with chemical called trichloroethylene imported from Japan and India. The process emits fumes which are detrimental to a healthy body. White Blood Corpuscles (WBC) and platelets began to fall down that led to Hepatitis B that eventually almost damaged the whole liver function. My wife Syeda Zareena Khatoon grew worried she took me Agha Khan Hospital, Karachi. Dr Mansoor-ul-Haq, a senior doctor, recommended transplant as the last resort. We without wasting another minute contacted Indian authorities and detailed everything. We got the due permission from both the governments. Dr Vinay went through all the details and recommended precautions, rest and strict follow-up of medicines that obviated the need to perform the operation. It’s been three weeks under medication. I’ve been convalescing and feeling much better than before. ” Seabtay expounded.

By Syed Wajid Ali