The importance of confirming the authenticity of information before disseminating it, especially when the news is not so pleasant, was driven home to me by an unnerving incident that happened a few years ago.
It has been my daily routine to ring up the intensive care unit (ICU) and the high dependency unit (HDU) to enquire about the health details, in terms of progress and recovery or otherwise, of post-operative patients I tend to, ever since I had been given that responsibility in the hospital I work in.
But one morning a few years ago, one of the many staff from ICU beat me at my routine when they rang me up to enquire about the location of my residence. “We’ve bought a wreath, and have arranged for a conveyance, sir.” “What happened to your mother?” they continued their enquiry, much to my bewilderment and shock that set butterflies flying in my empty morning stomach.
Taken aback, it took me a few seconds to regain my poise to answer their question. “Nothing is wrong with my mother. Why do you ask?” I replied. I sensed a significant degree of discomfiture, confusion and signs of a certain goof-up at the other end, when they abruptly replied, “We will call you back, sir” and discontinued the conversation. On ringing the hospital back, I learnt that the mother of one of the many doctors named George in the hospital had been ailing for some time and had passed away that morning. Overhearing the goings-on from the kitchen, my then septuagenarian mother, who was in reasonably good health, replied: “My God! Tell them I’m perfectly fine and very much alive. Tell them they’ll surely have the chance one day!”
This incident, though unnerving, remained a funny anecdote among the staff, while my mother and I took it in a sportive spirit. And there was a definite sense of relief that the whole incident was a faux pas, the result of gathering and passing on information gone awry. It remained so until January 19 this year when my mother passed away at 81. The ICU staff—new ones, the ones who almost placed a wreath on my mother when she was very much alive some years ago had by then left the ICU and the hospital for greener pastures—came home to pay their last respects to my mother.
Dr George Jacob
Email: earaly@hotmail.com