The Godfather
Trip Start
Apr 29, 2008
1
8
19
Trip End
Aug 03, 2008
Dehradun,
Uttarakhand,
India
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Monday: went to the Government hospital to meet Dr. Joshi, the best cardiologist in Doon, there was no room to walk in the hallways, little security guards armed with only an evil eye and a whistle cleared the way to Joshi's office....because Doon is a gov hospital it is serves the huddle masses, and there were plenty of masses to serve....
Dr. Joshi was a well kept man with a cheshire grin..which he flashes at me in between torrents of patients that crash on his desk....I am not joking, imagine an average office room converted to a blast furnace with 2 doctors, myself, and about 12..at one point I counted 15 patients all jostling to be seen, heard, poked, or told off. One patient would leave the chair, two would scramble to sit dowm, a third would squeeze through and smack a greasy paper on the desk and start jabbering on about hypertension, 5 rhinos decked out in saris try to slip through the door, simultaneously a well dressed man cooly glides in and waves his EKG in Joshi's face...then a portly Sikh man barrels in with half the panth behind him all booming and waving about...they have to pay for an ambulance...here in India, a trip to the doctor's office is like Xmas dinner; Gran, the cousins, and all the inlaws show up too... We saw about 95 patients in 4 hours..not including those without appointment sheets... But on to the Godfather.....
Sanjay Gandhi grew up with 8 others in a cramped dark room in Old Delhi....he never thought of medicine until the age of 15 he tells me from behind his looming cherrywood desk in his quite A/C office in the City Heart Hospital..He only pursued medicine after telling his father he wanted a vegetable cart...his father responded by chasing him down the street and throwing a pair of scissors, impaling gandhi in the lower flank....From that moment on, Sanjay would read voraciously, studying underneath streetlights in the evening for light.. passing at the top of his medical exams and singlehandedly starting up his own private 23 bed hospital, with Trauma facilites, ICU, OT, and Delivery...which he oversees personally, in addition to a new 40 bed hospital he just opened in Haridwar...Dr. Gandhi unravelled his career over tea and about 50 phone calls....an associate oh his in the corner slyly tells me that the doctor has most of Doon in that phone...Gangsters, grocers, government officials, and janitors, the doctor takes any patient...Gandhi says he very rarely sleeps more than 4 hours, he unwinds late at night by playing chess in his office, the man is constantly working...much to the peoples adoration...on more than one occasion, poor and wealthy alike have come in with much prostration and gifts...the Dr. objecting...and finally accepting the tokens of "good faith"...such as a pearl necklace for his wife, a DVD player, a pear tree...etc...I siut back and chuckle...this guy nows how to practice medicine....suddenly Dr. Gandhi gets a call, a well known "construction" magnate is having chest pains at his home....the doctor calmly agrees to see him...5 minutes later, two of the biggest Indians I have seen sheepishly enter the officr and apologetically explain that the boss is out back....we go and drag a well fed, watery eyed punjab man in pajamas onto a stretcher and into the hospital....after examination it is only an angina flare up...the grateful gangster hands Gandhi a fat wad of cash and a hearty namaste before being wheeled to his audi... despite all this Gandhi is still as approachable and amicable as ever, even if it is now 11 in the evening....what a guy. Much of the week goes by as such...TB patients and endless EKG's..here in India it is not uncommon for a 30 something to present with the same heart problems of a 50 or 60 yr old in Canada....victims of the Indian work ethic necessary for survival and prosperity here....
