The doctors may or may not be but the visitors are an essential component of a hospital or a patient's home. I wouldn’t stop you from getting awed at this obviously strange statement but I am sure this is not in line with any political or hypocritical statement. It is an experience as well as a keen observation. As for me, and even for everyone going through these lines, getting hospitalized for whatever reason can never be a cozy experience. But somehow it is inevitable.
When a patient is hospitalized, it is the litmus test of not only the doctors and the administration of the hospital but of the patient and his family as well. The test surfaces in the form of the visitors.
No, don’t be puzzled or awed at this revelation.
This is not a prophetic revelation though, it is partially true.
I am talking about the visitors who are comparatively over-groomed at the art of visiting a patient.
There are many noble causes in the world, but perhaps the most urgent humanitarian crisis of our modern age is a quieter one, unfolding not in forests or oceans but in hospital rooms across the globe. It is time for us as a society to face an uncomfortable truth:
The visitors at the service of the patient!
You might assume visitors are harmless, loving family members, supportive friends, coworkers who show up with flowers they bought at a bouquet shop. But make no mistake: the over-excited and over-friendly visitors are the single greatest threat to a patient’s peace, sanity and vital signs. They come armed with a number of suggestions, advises, questions and even their answers. At a mere look of your body lying on a hospital bed, they get emotionally intense.
It was the previous month when I happened to be lying on a hospital bed for some intestinal infection.
My relatives, friends and co-workers queued up to appear at the first moment they could spare. I was there in blood and flesh with an IV drip attached to my vein.
A very enthusiastic relative went near the drip stand and touched the bottle gently. He observed that the drops of the liquid were drip-dropping with the speed of an ant. Without consulting even me, he rolled up the small and fragile plastic wheel to speed up the tripling of the fluid and quietly sat down beside me.
Within a few minutes I began to feel cold flowing down my veins. By the time that visitor rose to leave, I was already shivering with cold in the heat of May. The doctor was called immediately who discovered that somebody had sped up the flow of the IV fluid which resulted in the emergence of this situation. Of course, the innocence and intent of such a well-wishing visitor cannot be doubted.
Among the firsts to visit the patient either in the hospital or at home are none other than the concerned relatives, the ones whose worry is so dramatic it requires its own cast, crew and lighting director.
You can hear their approach from down the hall.
‘Oh my GOODNESS, are you okay? You LOOK pale!’ they exclaim, as if surprised that someone recovering from surgery doesn’t resemble a contestant on a dating show.
This subset of visitor insists on narrating the patient’s appearance like a frantic sports commentator.
‘Your eyes look a little glazed. Are you dizzy? You’re dizzy, aren’t you? Should we call the nurse? Let me call the nurse. Do you have a fever? You’re sweating. You ARE sweating. You feel hot, feel hot to me!’
Meanwhile, the patient, who, until this moment, felt perfectly fine, now suddenly wonders if maybe they are about to die.
No hospital stay is complete without at least one visitor who has become a fully credentialed medical expert. It is all thanks to his browsing some Youtube videos or some websites.
‘You know,’ they begin, folding their arms with authoritative concern, ‘your symptoms sound exactly like what happened to my cousin’s neighbor.’
Then they proceed to diagnose the patient with something like un-understandable syndrome which does not exist but sounds serious enough that the patient now feels compelled to check their pulse rate.
Some visitors arrive with love, some with flowers and some with Parle G or Britania biscuits.
They sit down beside the patient and begin recounting every tragic medical outcome in the history of their family tree.
‘Your case reminds me of Husain uncle who went in for a routine tonsillectomy and ended up losing three toes.’
The patient begins to feel what he is actually not; at the last stage of his ailment.
If the goal is to lower the patient’s blood pressure, such innocent visitors have the opposite effect. They can raise blood pressure to altitude-sickness levels simply by saying, ‘You know what’s strange? You look exactly like my cousin did right before his appendix ruptured.’
These visitors arrive armed with enough home-made medicines.
They bring bitter and strange smelling soups, herbal teas and mysterious Ayurvedic or Unani home-made medicines on parallel level for the patient they are visiting.
They argue that allopathic medicines would not go a long way, but their Ayurvidic or Unani or home-made medicines obviously would.
Every hospital has designated visiting hours. But some visitors don’t think it necessary to follow the visiting hours. For them, it is a vague enforcement.
They arrive early, stay late, and sit for hours like they’re waiting for a flight that keeps getting delayed.
And what is more intriguing for them you know? They talk nonstop.
‘How are you feeling? Need anything? Want me to adjust your pillows? Let me tell you about my neighbor’s divorce no, really, it’s fascinating.’
The patient tries to smile and nod but nothing actually happens except that he feels more helpless.
Once it so happened the other day when I was just in my early twenties, that one of my cousin's husband suffered intense stomach-pain. The doctor who was consulted was a Master in Surgery. To cut the story short, the doctor admitted the patient in his own private hospital and strictly advised the stomach of the patient must experience the cuts of the doctor's knife. The patient waited for the surgery for next two days but due to one or the other reason, the operation would get delayed by another day. In the evening of the third day, the pain reached its highest point as a result of which the patient threatened either to kill himself or to run away from the hospital. This time I was sitting beside the patient as a visitor along with a couple of other relatives. We also did the same what other visitors would do. We kept talking for hours. Ultimately, dodging the eyes of the hospital administration, we stole the patient away from the hospital, made him sit on a bike between the rider and the handler and went from one hospital to another. No hospital was open as it was a holiday. After the tedium and rigorous shuffling, it was almost midnight when we returned home with the patient with no success in our hands. We dropped the patient at his home promising him to consult another doctor the next morning.
It was then that the miracle happened.
When I was helping the patient get down from the bike, he farted. We laughed but he said he was feeling like going to washroom. I handed the patient over to his other relatives, came back home and fell asleep.
The next morning at about 10, I woke up hearing the sounds of laughters. With some reluctance, I recognized it was the patient himself who had come to visit my parents and was laughing out loud. The presence of the visitors like us and a simple fart had saved this patient from the sharp knife of the doctor. And for many years after that, the patient never fell ill.
This real incidence proves that the visitors are an essential amenity as well. A patient needs a visitor as much as his doctor or the medicine to get well.
Visitors are not evil. They mean well. They truly, deeply care.
They arrive at the hospital because you exist in their life.
They arrive at the hospital because they exist in your life.
They sit beside your hospital bed because they care for you, as much, in fact more than you do care for yourself.

Email:----------------------------------hasnainaaqib1@gmail.com