It is her fourteenth day in the ICU…and there has been no sign of him for the last eleven. The Senior Intensivist who comes on rounds asks for him everyday, and she has no answer. She is asking the sisters for him everyday and they have answers like "We have called him, but he is not answering the phone". Ideally, he should be in the not so comfortable companion room on the same floor, like the attendants of the rest of the ICU patients, but his excuse is valid. Their home is just about a kilometre away, so there is no reason for him to spend the night in the train berth like beds provided for patients' relatives instead of the comfort of their own home. But he hasn't been here even during the brief visiting hours when the other patients' relatives steal in to spend a precious few minutes, with their ailing beloved, despite frequent reminders by the security guard.
The last she had seen of him was for barely two minutes, eleven days ago, when he had come in and asked- how are you, squeezed her hand when she tried to speak, said she should rest and gone out long before the security guard could appear. When she had tried to hold him back for a few more seconds, he had admonished saying that they were breaking the ICU rules! She knew the real reason. He was longing for his next drink. Her health mattered little to him. Even when she was battling for her life, fighting for every breath due to malarial complications. She had made the fatal mistake of deliberately delaying her hospitalization, as she had continued to report to work in the new organization she had just joined and was in the critical period of the first six months of probation, awaiting her confirmation. She could not afford to take a leave, and nor had she taken one when her father had an accident in Nagpur. She hadn't even been able to visit her parents and it was her sisters who had stepped in to take care of her parents. Moreover, he had resumed his drinking ever since his mother passed away last month, and his excuse being valid enough, she hadn't been able to stop him. Maybe she had foreseen this, so it was only when she felt she was on the verge of passing out, when she had asked to be taken to the hospital.
But now it was eleven days and there was no sign of him. Though her brothers in law were in the city he had forbidden her from informing any relatives, saying it would trouble them unnecessarily, when they could manage her hospitalization on their own. She had fallen so easily into the trap!
And now she was stranded here with her Falciparum Malaria being cured and she being eligible for discharge long ago! She had all the relatives in the world but they were incommunicable as her cellphone had been handed to her husband at the time of admission and he had been missing!
The hospital had been meticulously abiding by its rule of not troubling the patient with the constantly rising bill, and not presenting them to her, but she knew a lot of it was pending as there was no one to pay. Her worst fears were coming alive again. What would she do if something had happened to him? Would she have to sell one of her kidneys to the hospital to procure her discharge?
And the nursing staff and the resident doctors were beginning to show their true colors now. The nurses were discreetly asking for her biography everyday, trying to find out if she was a destitute or an orphan!
"Why is she occupying the bed when she is due for discharge?" She could hear a junior resident doctor say in a stage whisper to another. 'Oh, I am here for a picnic, you oaf! With all these needles and IV lines piercing my hands black and blue! And that too with your metre running high costing more than a five star hotel stay per day, and with the salt restricted and zero sugar, boiled and steamed tasteless and highly inedible food your dietitians plan for me everyday at my expense!The clear vegetable soup served at lunch yesterday was nothing but dish water!' She wanted to scream, but restrained herself in time as he went on to say,
"There may be some patient in urgent need of a bed being deprived one!' Well he had more than a valid point here, but what could she do?
The Senior Intensivist was more polite, but insistent when he asked for her husband everyday.
"Doctor, I am unable to contact him! Even I am asking the nurses everyday, but they are unable to!" She replied in frustration.
"But you are due for discharge and there is another emergency patient waiting!" She could not miss the edge in his voice. By now her own angry frustration pent up all these days, steamed out.
"Doctor you can check your hospital records…We have been regular patients of this hospital ever since it started and there isn't a single pending bill!"
"But where is your husband?" He persisted with all the politeness he could muster.
"Even I would like to know where he is! Because he is an alcoholic and I don't know if he is lying drunk or dead somewhere," She blurted through angry tears.
The doctor fell into an awkward silence at that for a moment, then said gently,
"We will see what we can do to help you out". She knew he couldn't do much. How could he find a drunk man for her in this whole wide city or how could he let her walk away without paying the bills? She knew from her rich hospital experience that she had the hospital tag on her wrist, which would be cut only after her bills were paid and her discharge procedure was done! Until then she was a sort of hostage here! It was time once again for her to turn herself over to her higher power and say her serenity prayer, which she hadn't yet forgotten.
That evening she was desolately looking at the relatives of other patients sneaking into the ICU despite the visiting hours being over, when she saw a couple of familiar faces. It was their building secretary Mr. Sharma and his wife making their way towards her. She was surprised that the guards and the nursing staff had allowed them in despite it being well past the visiting hours! But even the hospital staff knew when to bend the rules! Especially if there was someone asking to see a patient whom they had deemed to be a destitute! She herself had been never happier to see them than she was now. Fortunately for her Mrs. Sharma had met them on the building staircase when they were coming down for admission, and for once Mrs. Sharma's inquisitive queries had paid off!
"We had come here to visit a relative of ours…so we decided to visit you as well…How are you now?" She was more than grateful to them for transpiring like angels before her in her pathetic circumstances and decided that she would be the biggest moron on earth, if she didn't share her embarrassing circumstances with them. As if they didn't know already!
"Do let us know if we can do something," Mrs. Sharma offered politely and she immediately grasped the opportunity.
"Can you please find out where Siddharth is, and in what condition? Is he home, or somewhere else?" She pleaded and they left promising that they would.