Ordained!

Dr. Munawar Aziz MCPS*

The story goes back to the days when I was Registrar of the Chest & TB Unit at Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. In those days, deserving TB patients were admitted for treatment in that unit (later, the practice of admitting TB patients to chest units and the concept of sanatoria was abandoned). Nowadays, confirmed TB patients who satisfy the criteria of WHO are treated as outpatients with proper follow-up.

It was a Sunday, a holiday, but as I was living in the hospital premises and being the Registrar, I was on duty round the clock. I got up a bit late because of night emergencies and decided to go for a haircut at a nearby shop on foot. While crossing the hospital gate, it suddenly occurred to me to make a surprise visit to see how things were going.

On entering the duty room, the nurse on duty told me that she had just sent the ward boy to call me to attend to a serious patient (this was before the cell phone era), and she was surprised to see me arrive so quickly!

When I entered the ward, the so-called “serious” patient had already been declared dead by the attendants and the other admitted patients. They had tied the patient’s toes together, bandaged his chin to his head, and were reciting verses from the Holy Quran. They told me to stay away, insisting the patient was already dead. But I remembered my training, that nobody should be declared dead until a certain protocol is followed, including CPR for at least half an hour. I began examining the “dead” patient. When I placed my stethoscope on his chest, I could faintly hear a very weak heartbeat! I immediately grabbed an injection of Adrenaline and injected it straight into his heart. Lo and behold, the patient took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and slowly sat up, looking around in confusion at what was happening.

I walked around the ward like a hero, firmly instructing everyone to stay away from the patient. Then I wrote all the necessary orders for the nurse to carry out and left for the much needed hair cut!

To this day, when I recall the chain of events, that on a holiday, at precisely the right time, I made a surprise visit to the ward just when I was needed, it remains a mystery to me. I believe it was destined to be that way. God knows best.

Moral of the story: Never give up, and always be professional in your approach.

• Dr. Munawar Aziz
  Abbottabad, Pakistan.
  aziz.munawar@gmail.com