{"id":163443,"date":"2016-06-05T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T18:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=163443"},"modified":"2016-06-10T09:59:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T04:29:54","slug":"not-quite-waiting-for-godot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/not-quite-waiting-for-godot\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Quite \u201cWaiting For Godot\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emil van der Poorten<\/span><\/a> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Emil<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

Wikipedia describes \u201cWaiting for Godot\u201d \u201cas an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone\u00a0…\u201d<\/p>\n

That quote certainly came to mind the other night when I and the rest of the forty-odd \u201cnumber holders\u201d languished in the corridor of one of the \u201cchannel centres\u201d in a provincial capital.<\/p>\n

I had symptoms very similar to a friend who had recently been diagnosed with a detached retina and who had had to undergo complicated (and expensive in a private institution) surgery.<\/p>\n

I took the usual Sri Lankan route, phoned the \u201cchannel centre,\u201d as these places where patients meet consultants are called, and was given a number: eleven, to be exact.<\/p>\n

That was a little off-putting because the consultant began seeing patients at 7:30 in the evening and would not, I assumed, go on for too long given the fact that it must have already been a long (professional) day in ward and operating theatre before arrival at \u201cthe centre\u201d which, incidentally bears the name of one of those \u201cimportant\u201d families of that particular city.<\/p>\n

My assumptions were to be turned on their head quickly enough.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that I know consultants not to belong in the category of \u201cclock watchers\u201d in the matter of showing up at the times scheduled by them, I arrived a half hour early on a dark and drizzly night which most nights have been for the past little while.<\/p>\n

I gave my name, producing, as I always now do, a business card which is expected to do away with the verbal contortions which usually erupt when I have to give that information orally.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the officious young lady did get it right, but recorded me only by my first name, something that was not unique to this particular location as I\u2019ve discovered since my return to the country in which I received it.<\/p>\n

The fun had only begun.<\/p>\n

I moved towards the corridor, jam-packed with humanity awaiting entry into the hallowed chambers in which those who supposedly took the Hippocratic Oath ply their respective trades.<\/p>\n

My loss of hearing hasn\u2019t destroyed by ability to read receipts and the one I was given had a female first name. Not a particular problem until I realized that the number allocated to that person was thirty-nine, if I remember right.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to the counter I go in an effort to correct a mistake for which the clerk concerned bore complete responsibility. She, however, appeared most annoyed that I had accepted the wrong receipt and, with a mutter and scowl, dispatched one of her flunkeys in search of the person now carrying a receipt for money paid by Emil and the number eleven on it.<\/p>\n

I was pleasantly surprised when quick success was achieved, perhaps because the throng in the corridor had not yet reached proportions when the only practical way to make progress would have been with a battering ram. I swapped the 39 or whatever I was holding for my 11 and the waiting began in earnest. This was a little after 7 p.m. and I expected that, typically, the Hippocratic Oath-taker would be a half-hour to an hour late.<\/p>\n

A little aside here might be appropriate at this point: the corridor that served as the point of entry into each consulting room must originally have been intended for about one third the number that was there that night and the seating accommodation confirmed this. In spades.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you that shifting from one leg to another for more than an hour is no fun for someone long past the proverbial three score and ten years. However, I got lucky when one of the other vertical patients pointed out a vacant chair at the far end of the corridor. We were now on the cusp of about 8:30 p.m. and I wondered what would happen to what I guessed to be in excess of forty patients, many presumably from out of town and dependent on public transport or a motor bike, particularly given the adverse weather.<\/p>\n

Sometime after 9:30 p.m. our Angel of Mercy\/Practitioner of the Hippocratic Oath (take your pick) arrived. Just prior to this, I had enquired from the front desk whether, in fact, the person we were all there to see would show up. The translation of what I was told was that \u201cshe usually doesn\u2019t not come,\u201d which was, I thought, a fairly quaint way in which to prepare us for the worst if that was to be our fate.<\/p>\n

In a very short time, given the fact that there were ten patients ahead of me, I was ushered in and greeted with something to the effect of \u201cWhat is it this time\u201d which, given the context, would suggest that I was some kind of hypochondriac with an eye obsession.<\/p>\n

I was put through the basic examination routine and had drops put into both eyes and asked to sit in a chair in a corner of the consulting room, much like someone who\u2019d been caught with his hand in the teacher\u2019s cookie jar and had been \u201csent to (that particular) Coventry.\u201d That, however, was to be a short-lived arrangement because \u201cpatient processing\u201d needs or something of that kind kicked in and I was kicked out to spend a while in the afore-mentioned corridor, the crush in which had not diminished.<\/p>\n

Have you ever seen an elderly man trying to stare ceiling-wards while standing up<\/strong> because of the medication in his eyes required him to do so? \u201cAwkward,\u201d might be one way to describe the situation. \u201cLudicrousRidiculous\u201d would be more accurate.<\/p>\n

A lady observing my distress was kind enough to offer me her chair while she stood with no guarantee that when I was called back in she would be able to return to her seat ahead of the more nimble in the throng!<\/p>\n

In due course, I was called back in, given a diagnosis which, essentially, didn\u2019t condemn me to blindness in the immediate future but which might, in due course, make Nelson\u2019s telescope of some interest when I reached the inevitable condition.<\/p>\n

I was, I am sure, one of the fortunate ones there that night because I not only had private transportation, no matter how modest, but someone who drove me to and from this appointment. It was certainly close to midnight when I reached home and I wondered how late it would be before some of my fellow patients of that night reached their homes. After all I was number 11 and it is anybody\u2019s guess how many of the forty-something numbers would be processed that night and how those souls would, thereafter, find their way home and at what hour.<\/p>\n

In case anyone can\u2019t resist (the usual) snide remarks about \u201cspoiled ex-pats\u201d etc., let me put the record straight in advance. As someone who had a seriously sick spouse for many years, I\u2019ve seen the insides of too many hospitals and consulting rooms in three continents to be naive in these matters. And one of those three continents was Asia and the country was Sri Lanka when patients in the public health care system were treated as just that and not as some part of a business equation. Things have got worse in this country and what I have related in the foregoing narrative is just the tip of the iceberg which I also described in an earlier piece about my experience in a \u201cteaching hospital\u201d in another provincial capital.<\/p>\n

I am not about to suggest remedies in a piece of this length for an obviously unsatisfactory state of affairs because there are people with a far greater knowledge of public health to whom the answers are only too obvious. However, that is cold comfort in the context of government after government under-funding health care and forcing people to pay for medical services which are then provided them as if it were a privilege for them to see one of those who, presumably, took the Hippocratic Oath and presumably understands what it say.<\/p>\n

The foregoing is bad enough without the realization that governments and Ministers of Health just don\u2019t care and, worse yet, these betrayers of public trust have the benefit of a public that has given up and will, seemingly, continue to accept treatment like some supplicants at a manorial table.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t about time that we all mouth the memorable words of Peter Finch in \u201cNetwork\u201d and shout from the rooftops, \u201cI\u2019m mad as hell and I\u2019m not going to take it anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":157872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nNot Quite \u201cWaiting For Godot\u201d - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/not-quite-waiting-for-godot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Quite \u201cWaiting For Godot\u201d - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/not-quite-waiting-for-godot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-04T18:31:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-10T04:29:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Emil-van-der-Poorten-Colombo-Telegraph-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"150\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"182\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/not-quite-waiting-for-godot\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/not-quite-waiting-for-godot\/\",\"name\":\"Not Quite \u201cWaiting For Godot\u201d - 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