Charity and Vision

Vision is one of my few obsessions.   I’m slow to see and understand things that matter for worldly success.  That’s why I had to visit my ophthalmologist after my duty at school today.  I had lost my spectacles in the Arabian Ocean while playing with my students at Calangute beach in Goa the other day during a tour from school.  My ophthalmologist is an organisation: Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre in Delhi.  There is no single individual who relates to you personally in that institute.  Yet every employee is a paragon of politeness.  Every patient feels like a VIP in that institute. 

I was escorted, like any other patient, from the reception to the hall where I had to wait for the first examination.  (And I was escorted similarly from room to room thereafter.) I had made it very clear that I just wanted to get a new pair of spectacles with the right powers of the lenses.  But my ophthalmologist (the hospital which is a charitable institution that charges merely Rs300 for a whole lot of exercises which make use of very expensive technology) put me through at least 5 different tests which took more than three hours.

While I was waiting for one such test, I was approached by one employee of the hospital with a questionnaire.  The questionnaire sought my opinion  on the services offered by the hospital.  Every question was meant to check the employees’ behaviour.  I ticked “excellent” for every question because that was my honest answer. 

If the medical service provided by the hospital matches the behaviour of the employees, Venu is the best ophthalmologist in Delhi.  But how can I, a layman as far as vision is concerned, determine the standards of the medical profession?

After the dilation of my eyes and the penultimate checking done by a doctor who told me that my eyes were in perfect condition provided I used a pair of spectacles whose powers would be prescribed the next day since prescription could not be done within 4 hours of dilation of the eyes I understood how difficult it was to be a doctor in a charitable institution these days.

I have decided to continue with Venu Institute for all my further vision problems.  I fell like a VIP there. 

A 3 or 4 year-old boy was with his mother who had come for a check-up.  The boy created a lot of havoc in the hospital running around in too many places making too much noise.  When one of the hospital personnel dared to complain to the boy’s mother, the mother said to the boy, “Come on darling, behave yourself.”  And the boy did behave himself.  He raised his fist against his mother.  The hospital employee, a woman in uniform, immediately held the fist and asked the mother, “Shall I take him to the children’s play section?”  And the mother said lackadaisically, “Yeah.”

I pitied the employee.  And I loved the hospital.

PS: I’m not a shareholder of the charitable hospital.