The Insane Woman

I used to often see a woman at the road-side in rags, teased by everyone around...she was a schizophrenic abandoned by her family. One day she was brought to the hospital by a symphathizer and was in acute labour pain. Not long after, she gave birth to a baby boy but once she recovered from the episode, she left the hospital least bothered to even take a glimpse of her baby.
The job of bringing up the one day old infant without the mother was left to us. With no decent orphanages around, we had no choice but to find foster parents for this new-born and today the child is happy, being the only son of a couple who were not blessed with their own. The mother is no more to be seen ....wonder what must have happened to her. This had forced me to contemplate about the way we treat insane people. Where did all the human right activists go? Where were all those who were fighting for women's rights?....Wasn't this woman raped?
The insane never get the justice they deserve, the irony is that to get justice you have to be able to fight for it and they are just not able to do that. Has anyone seriously done a head-count of the number of mentally-compromised people? Has the government or the Medical Council of India ever bothered how many mental beds we have in our hospitals? There is a serious shortage in the number of asylums, rehabilitation centres and hospitals for the insane people. The corporate hospitals are not going to think about it and even if they do, they will cater only to insane of the elite and well-to-do families.
It's time we properly rehabilitate the lunatic to fulfil both their rights and also to reduce the danger and the unpredictability of having them around. One might recall  an incident when a girl was slit by the throat by an insane at the Gateway of India, unprovoked some years back.
We too are all insane in our own way. Insanity is a continuous spectrum of a disease where all of us fall somewhere along its continuum and we can easily become one of those whom we tease and to whom we throw stones. They are very much much part of us and we have to accept them in our fold and rehabilitate them on the right hands.
The insane need your love and support; I reverberate their unheard voice.

My First Autopsy

Jan'1997, I was on the Rajdhani Express on my way to Delhi. Delhi was one of my favourite holiday destination, not only b'coz I had relatives and a resultant free stay but also for the several other things that attracted me.....The Rodeo at the C.P. , The Priya Cinema, The Delhi Haat, and the Daiichi at South-Ex. just to name a few were my favourites.
Travelling alone, I ensured for enough newspapers and magazines to give me company, lest I don't find a congenial co-traveller. As the journey started I opened the newspaper and found a startling headlines..it said my best friend, my hostel room-mate whom I bid good-bye after my final examinations was missing for the last 4 days. I, however did'nt take it very seriously. Though he had managed to hit the headlines, somewhere in the back of my mind, I firmly believed that he must be somewhere or the other.
My next 1 month in Delhi was all fun and frolic, met old friends, literally did'nt have time for newspaper and T.V. After a month, the day I landed at Imphal airport curfew was on...my dad had arranged for a police-officer to bring me back home so that I don't remain stuck in the airport till the curfew relaxes. The state was boiling in agitation,' A FINAL YEAR MEDICAL STUDENT MISSING FOR ONE MONTH WITH FIVE OTHER PEOPLE......GOVERNMENT CLUELESS'. Demonstrations, hungerstrikes etc. had become a daily affair & I,too joined in protest.
Meanwhile, our examination results got declared; both of us passed in subsequent ranks. Internship also started shortly and my first posting was in Forensic Medicine. It was a Sunday that I received a phone call from the mortuary that 6 dead bodies had been brought and that I needed to report by 9 A.M. to conduct post-mortem.
As I entered the morgue, I found my friend's dead body lying on the table, putrified & pungent in odour. His red jacket was intact, I could identify his shoes & his torn jeans. Face was puffed up beyond recognition. The bodies were brought after exhumation, buried after the murder probably a month back. His hands were tied behind & had a bullet entry wound in the occipital area & an exit wound between the nose and the right eye which meant he was shot from the back, hands tied. All the other bodies too were shot in similar manner. The professor told me 'Girish, this is your friend, you have to do the P.M. on him'. Heavy in the heart, but bound to oblige, I put on my protective clothing, ran the scalpel on my friend's body, emptied his putrified abdomen, removed his lungs, his heart, slit his skull open but the brain had undergone liquifactive necrosis and ran off as putrid fluid.
Never in my wildest imagination, had I thought my first post-mortem would be on my friend who was always with me. This episode hit me hard and I took lot of time to recover from it. My friend was a very kind-hearted person. He belonged to a humble family where all eyes were set on him that he becomes a doctor and looks after the rest. He was a classic example that proved the old saying,' Whom the Gods love,die young '.
It has been more than 12 years since this happened. Today, I am just remembering you ,my friend. Can you read it in heaven?

Euthanasia,when death is the cure.

The debate seems endless where many view 'Mercy Killing' as a merciless act. Others opine that there is an intrinsic value of life and it cannot be terminated on grounds of mercy. Yet others believe that the rapidly developing health science gives a room for Hope till the last. Lastly, when Hope ends, it leaves Miracle to do the rest.
Let me try to put forward a more pragmatic approach to this issue. We all agree that the fundamental aim of Medical Science is the well-being of the patient. All efforts are directed towards curing the ailment or at least to alleviate the pain and suffering. It is also undeniable that inspite of all the advancement that has been acheived in this field, there still remains a fraction, however miniscule, of highly incurable illness with zero prognosis.
It is a painful sight to see the suffering of a terminally ill patient and as doctors we get suffocated in helplessness. Can't I do something for him? These are the times when palliative treatment even loses its sensible meaning. The survival of a person in such a condition may be of no benefit to himself or his family and in such circumstance, the only cure is death itself.
I stand in support of Euthanasia. However,it should be an exceptional decision,rather an exceptional choice of treatment, decided upon by a panel of highly responsible doctors, in an authorised centre with the consent of the family of the patient, in the presence legal authorities.
If the aim of the medical professionals, is to minimise suffering, Euthanasia is definitely a therapy.