A man died at a public hospital because he was not attended to fast enough and with care in the Emergency Department. That's what his son alleges.
It is a sad episode for the family. And for the hospital, too. No sane person would want to visit grief upon another.
Waiting a long while for a public hospital appointment, or in an Emergency Department is not uncommon, though. This writer spent three hours in a bed there some years back. It was cold and bright. Every space was occupied, by a pensive man or purring machine.
He was not in pain, not convulsing, not terrified. Only bitterly cold. Sometime after midnight, a bed in a ward became vacant. Then was he put on a gurney for a short journey to that long room.
The ward was crowded and uncomfortably warm. Fourteen nights he spent there. But no complaints left his dry lips or pallid face.
His brother had a similar experience recently. The family thought he had suffered a stroke. They were right. A CT scan done nearly six hours after admission confirmed this fact and their fears.
We are told a stroke patient should be treated quickly, within an hour. Is six hours quick enough?
To be fair, the patient was conscious and able to talk and move about a little over two hours after the attack. Before that, he was all but immobile.
Perhaps that's why it was okay to wait?
This is not a story about weaknesses in public hospitals. Too many doctors, nurses and others have been kind to this writer, his family and friends: it wouldn't do to permit such callous conclusions.
Waiting is what people do a lot anyway. Even when they lodge complaints.
A close friend tells the writer of one such episode. A contractor laying cables outside his home damaged his drains. He complained to the local council, but it was a full 10 months of back and forth before the matter was remedied.
We wait in banks and at checkouts, too. Many times, it's a mind-numbing experience. The Internet has made it a little easier, though. Payments can be done fairly quickly. So that's one fewer irritation to gripe about.
Some of these financial institutions now have departments/units that cater to the wealthy, or high-net-worth individuals. Fast and personalised service is the order of the day for the deep-pocketed.
But that's the way things are. And it is not just in healthcare and banking. In pursuing justice, in education and in buying homes, too. Waiting is a must in much of people's lives. Unless you have money or insurance. Or you have power. Or you know someone.
Everyone will be served, in some measure, eventually. But with money or power, you go to the top of the queue and be with the lucky few.
It's life. It happens elsewhere, too. There's little to complain about angrily, but much to accept stoically.
Perhaps a time will come when this long wait is no more. A time when people take better care of their bodies and minds, and make fewer trips to hospitals. But this writer thinks the sunsets and sunrises that belong, by divine grace, to folks living today must pass away first before this new way is born.
That's a mighty long wait, a mighty hard truth. Expect more unhappy episodes in public hospitals and elsewhere, in the meantime.
* The writer is NST production editor