The only thing virile about the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors was their acronym, MARD, the Hindi word for manliness. It was the organization of doctors in residency training that spearheaded agitations every so often, protesting issues as diverse as the exorbitant price of meals in the canteen to the lack of toilets for the resident doctors on call. The residents were the bulwarks of the hospital, performing most of the actual work of taking care of patients. From starting IVs to complicated surgeries, from examining patients to pushing gurneys, there was no hat that didn’t fit those young, devoted heads. In addition, they carried the onus of teaching the students, having to make time in the evenings, beyond their normal working hours. For their services, they received a stipend that was meagre by all standards; an outrage, the administration justified by reminding them that they were still students. They lived in miserable makeshift rooms in the hospital (named ‘Resident Vista’ by somebody’s grandiose imagination) whose narrow, alley-like width inspired immediate claustrophobia on the so afflicted. The thin plywood walls separating one room from the next were rumored to be porous to the sound of a cockroach’s fart, and at the end of such pigeonholes were two bathrooms to be shared amiably amongst the inhabitants during the morning rush.
The residents worked tirelessly, ignoring these hardships with a fortitude that bequeathed on them a martyr like aura. However, a subtle undercurrent of exploitation periodically haunted the fraternity. It did find a voice in the protests organized by MARD, albeit the issues were usually so trivial that the demonstrations took the form of wearing black armbands for a week or putting up posters outside the administration’s offices in the stealth of the night. Their ineffectual methods of protest were looked on by the hospital administration as something like the rebelliousness of a truant child who would eventually learn his lesson. The lack of financial backing and a reluctance to assume leadership for fear of authoritarian retribution during the exams were the principal reasons the organization lacked a coherent voice. In addition, the common sentiment that residency was simply a temporary torture, to be endured for three years and then forgotten, made everybody think of agitating with only half-hearted zeal.
Trouble began on a hot morning that June, when Dr Seema Mantri went to get her shot of penicillin from the outpatient department. Dr Mantri, a third year resident in ophthalmology, had suffered from rheumatic fever as a child and needed prophylaxis with penicillin on a monthly basis. That day she had had her penicillin injection like all days except for the fact that minutes after the injection, she started to feel nauseous and vomited. Although she was in the middle of a busy outpatient department, nobody paid her any special notice. Within a few minutes she started to sweat profusely and collapsed on the floor. That got a resident doctor’s attention. He immediately realized that she was having an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. Pheru who was posted to the outpatient department that month happened to be there with the resident who told him what was going on. They rushed to the nearest nursing station, shouting for adrenaline. However, the outpatient department had no adrenaline…they would have to take her to ‘Casualty’ that was a hundred yards away.
By then a crowd gathered around her and a mini-melee ensued. Somehow the resident and Pheru managed to get her onto a stretcher and started pushing her at breakneck speed along the corridor towards Casualty. At that very moment, the local municipal corporation leader (called corporator) and a couple of his good-for-nothing cronies were coming around the corner of the same corridor. Out on a cursory survey to show his concern for the citizens of the area he considered his personal fiefdom, the corporator was completely unprepared for what crashed into him. Furious at been rammed into, he immediately started beating up Pheru and the resident. The two tried to direct their attention towards Dr Mantri who was gasping on the stretcher, but to no avail. A crowd gathered and pandemonium ensued. In the end, by the time they got Dr Mantri to Casualty, she was quite dead. It didn’t help matters that in Casualty, the supply of oxygen had stopped and the nurse couldn’t find the keys to unlock the cupboard and retrieve an IV set.
To add insult to injury, the corporator and his goons showed up at the dean’s office to ‘protest’. The Dean – a highly qualified but spineless political stooge – promised to take ‘action’ on the matter. Within an hour of having obsequiously kow-towed his hands in front of the municipal corporator, he ordered the resident and Pheru to be suspended from duty.
This time the residents exploded in fury.
Dr Mantri’s fiancé, was a highly respected chief resident of surgery. Distraught with grief, he assumed the mantle of MARD’s leadership rather naturally, suddenly finding unqualified support for his fury from his fellow residents. In a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and anger, a rally was organized in the Anatomy Hall within hours of the incident. The news spread through the campus like wildfire and within minutes the huge hall was packed with medical students, residents, fellows, teachers and ward boys.
Everybody knew him, not only as Dr Mantri’s fiancée but also as a brilliant surgical resident. Tall and sturdy, with a dignified face that inspired immediate respect, he stood silently in front of the massive gathering, waiting for it to quieten down. He cleared his throat, looked around at the hundreds of faces staring back at him, and began in a loud, firm voice.
‘Thank you all for coming here,’ he said. ‘As you know, today Seema died. She died from an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. Amit, our senior medical resident, and Salim Pherwani, a fourth-year medical student, tried to save her, but couldn’t. So, we gather here trying to understand why a twenty-four-year-old, four months from completing her degree, now lies on a cold stretcher in the dirty morgue.’
Some of the girls began to cry.
He took a deep breath and continued. ‘So what killed her? Was it because there was no adrenaline in the OPD? Or was it because the Casualty is so far away from the OPD that a patient will die ten times before they can reach it? Was it because there was no oxygen in Casualty? Or was it because Amit and Salim were stopped by a bunch of goondas who our dean does salaam to?’
He paused. Angry whispers and enraged nods filled the audience.
‘No!’ he said, raising his voice. ‘We killed her!’