Let me show you one of the typical contradictions that India keeps coming up with, at an astonishing rate. On the one hand, Chennai nee Madras prides itself on being the capital of medical tourism. And one of its more elite hospitals is Malar hospital on the bank of Adyar River. As my luck would have it, my wife has had to be hurriedly admitted at the emergency ward, the reason for our returning again, and again, and again, ad nauseum, to Malar, being that the doctors that she has had to consult have had affiliations with that hospital. Now for my gripes against Malar Hospital, let me slowly lead up to the prime contradiction in this hospital. I must tell you that I use a battery powered wheelchair in the naive hope that this will make me independent. Almost every door in this hospital comes equipped with one of those self-locking devices, which you should know is one of the prime reasons for rendering any building highly barrier-ridden and disabled-unfriendly. So my always low threshold for difficult environs was already simmering and ready to erupt as my search for a disabled-friendly toilet continued. The first two toilets I was led to were disqualified from fitting the requirements of being disabled-friendly because of a step at the entrance and of having stalls too small for manoeuvring a wheel-chair. At the sight of my face being dangerously close to apoplectic, the nurse, who had suggested those two toilets said the toilets of the desired sort were to be found on some other floor and quickly took herself far from the elevator! And when I got to the mentioned floor, I found that the toilets there were also rendered unfriendly by the ever-present step at the entrance to the toilet.A little more enquiry led to the amazing fact (at least as far as anybody there could tell) that Malar hospital does not have a single disabled-friendly toilet! I wonder if any of those medical tourism booklets mention this amazing fact.
Still simmering and seething from the amazing gall of the above fact, I felt that nothing could amaze me any more about this hospital. But Malar was always ready with yet another no-brainer for you to chew on! Whenever a patient is admitted to this hospital (or to several others of its ilk), she has to have an attendant (who will have to make periodic visits to the pharmacy to keep replenishing the stock of pills that have been consumed since the last such visit to the local pharmacy, or pay some bills in one of the administrative offices which are woefully ill-equipped to accommodate a wheelchair user in their narrow corridors). But those corridors are luxuriously spacious in comparison with the bedroom the patient has to share with the attendant. The pokey little space reserved for the attendant can only be reached after making a couple of tight 90 degree turns around the hospital bed after carefully bypassing all the gizmos attached to the bed. As for turning the wheel chair around so you can get back out of the room, the paucity of space around the bed makes that impossible unless you have a brawny person in the room who can manually accomplish this. And you should have the presence of mind to stop every hospital hand visiting the patient from automatically clicking on the locking device on her way out. And if you wanted to call some nurse from their waiting room, that door - just like every other door from the patient's room to the nurses' lounge - will also have this gizmo trying to prevent you from pulling it open! I have a long list of no-no's for a potential access audit of this hospital. It has an enormously long list of goofs to be rectified before it can claim to be accessible. When I was sweetly asked for my comments about our experience at Malar, I said I had a whole essay to contribute on the topic, which I intended to publicise in my blog one day! This is that day; and every dog has its day!
Still simmering and seething from the amazing gall of the above fact, I felt that nothing could amaze me any more about this hospital. But Malar was always ready with yet another no-brainer for you to chew on! Whenever a patient is admitted to this hospital (or to several others of its ilk), she has to have an attendant (who will have to make periodic visits to the pharmacy to keep replenishing the stock of pills that have been consumed since the last such visit to the local pharmacy, or pay some bills in one of the administrative offices which are woefully ill-equipped to accommodate a wheelchair user in their narrow corridors). But those corridors are luxuriously spacious in comparison with the bedroom the patient has to share with the attendant. The pokey little space reserved for the attendant can only be reached after making a couple of tight 90 degree turns around the hospital bed after carefully bypassing all the gizmos attached to the bed. As for turning the wheel chair around so you can get back out of the room, the paucity of space around the bed makes that impossible unless you have a brawny person in the room who can manually accomplish this. And you should have the presence of mind to stop every hospital hand visiting the patient from automatically clicking on the locking device on her way out. And if you wanted to call some nurse from their waiting room, that door - just like every other door from the patient's room to the nurses' lounge - will also have this gizmo trying to prevent you from pulling it open! I have a long list of no-no's for a potential access audit of this hospital. It has an enormously long list of goofs to be rectified before it can claim to be accessible. When I was sweetly asked for my comments about our experience at Malar, I said I had a whole essay to contribute on the topic, which I intended to publicise in my blog one day! This is that day; and every dog has its day!
