The worst thing an IIM can do to its prospective students is to ask them to get a medical fitness certificate from a government hospital. Six days of effort and hours of total frustration is just the tip of an iceberg!
As usual one starts off with some impressive googling. Google guided me to a Naval Dockyard Hospital. I should have got a cue when people were clueless about the hospital! Nonetheless, regardess of the midday sun beating down upon me, I found out the hospital only to realize that it caters only for defence personnel! A couple of phone calls and googling later I found myself heading to ESIS hospital in Central Mumbai. It was past 2.30pm and the Medical Officer was still not back from lunch. Sensing my determination to stay back, the attendant advised me to be back by 3.30. Of course I had to make a phone call to understand that it was 3.30 because it was said in Marathi. I thought I will try my luck at the nearby Municipal General Hospital. There was a doctor there and he asked me to get a Blood test, Urine test and X-ray done from outside and then he will be able to give me the certificate. So much so for the time wasted since Lunch break on Day 1.
Some clever person gave me the idea of utilizing the upcoming holiday on Buddha Purnima to get the work done. After all people do get sick every day. However it took a trip to Navi Mumbai municipal hospital (as per the forums, one of the candidates got it done here) proved me that all government institutions are the same. As for the people getting sick on a holiday, a casualty ward was kept running. So much so for the post lunch run all the way to New Bombay on Buddha Purnima on Day 2.
Day 3. Left office with official permission at 10 am post breakfast and tea. This time I headed off to the nearest ESIS hospital. You know what, google hides facts! ESIS stands for Employees' State Insurance Scheme and as such the hospital caters to only factory workers etc who are insured with Maharashtra state. Determination led me to Siddharth hospital in another corner of the city. There is another thing that I discovered about government hospitals: they stop giving new 'case papers' at around 11. Despite everyone asking me to come back the next day, commonsense prevailed and I waited in the queue and consulted the doctor as to what to do. I got another chit with lists of tests to be done from outside. The doctor herself suggested me to go to some big government hospital like Cooper hospital where they do the tests inhouse. The name stuck on and with the expectation of finding a big super speciality hospital like Apollo, I set off to Cooper hospital retracing all the way back in the opposite direction on Western Express Highway. Now came the third realization - all government hospitals are the same regardless of what their name is. The same old shabby infrastructure would never have been a problem, had they issued case papers post 11am! Resigning to the fate of getting tests done from an outside private hospital, I headed to the Hiranandani Hospital, only to realize later that I should not have gorged on the mallu meal I had minutes before, as the blood test has to be done while fasting. Each hospital taught me a different thing each time!
Day 4 found me going straight to Cooper hospital directly from home. I reached by 8 and I hadn’t had any food. Common sense suggested that I should have gone to Thane Civil hospital where you can get the job done in half a day. It seems you get the tests done for formality there and the medical certificate is issued without even referring for the test reports! But then, as it has happened umpteen number of time in my life, I chose the difficult path – Cooper – paying little regard to the experiences of people already having gone there. There was a difference; I had a contact there through a colleague at office. I was dreaming of getting the certificate getting done in 5 minutes through the ‘high-level-contact’ until I realized that the ‘contact’ was just a security guard there. Anyways, he was supremely helpful and had it not been for him, I would have taken another two three days and maybe I would have ended up in jail for creating some law and order problem in Cooper hospital thanks to the frustrating bureaucratic procedures.
Fasting blood test, Xray, ECG, half of surgical clearance, Ophthalmology clearance, Sonography and Post food blood test got done by the time the hospital closed for the day. When the strip check and other tests were going on, I kept on wondering whether I was going to the army or going to be sacrificed in some temple festival. Only those people require such stringent tests. I felt like Neo of Matrix when the ECG was going on! And thus I went to office drenched and having lost one kilo as sweat!
Day 5. The problem with getting the thing done in Cooper is that you have to get clearance from each and every department that is there. To compound to this, there is no reception, nobody to guide you, and the doctors’ prescriptions are illegible. This is where the security man was of great help. However, I wasted close to half a day at Cooper just to get a clearance from ENT department which unfortunately was not functional on the previous day. All they did was to strike a tuning fork near the ear and scribble a few words. Now comes the great news – medical OPD department won’t be functional that day. I still had to show the sonography report to the Surgical department.
Day 6. Surgical Department ate close to an hour just for getting a line written on the case sheet. A huge huge line was waiting outside the medical OPD. Having had no food or water I grew even more frustrated by waiting in the sun. I was sent to get the date punched on the case paper. I sorely missed the security man as he was on leave that day. After hundred pages of ‘Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson’, I was in the hallowed presence of the government doctor. My blood was boiling and I was cursing the OPD doc as he made me run around and getting frustrated for no fault of mine. Maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend! By the time he said he won’t give the medical certificate in the prescribed format, I almost asked “What the ***k, you could have told this ***king thing beforehand!” I am not a person who loses temper that easily, but then I was bent on blasting each and every higher authority present in Cooper hospital. The clerk issuing the receipt for the medical certificate wanted the reports to be filed properly and each and every minute spent roaming around in Andheri to find a stationery shop maddened me. Unexpectedly the Medical officer on duty was a very nice person and she got my work done in a jiffy and I was back to my senses. While going she said, ‘Don’t tell your friends that Cooper Hospital is giving medical certificates and all, we don’t usually do this!’ And now I sped off for breaking the fast with a good Kerala Lunch. I should actually thank my company for not saying anything while I was absconding from work!
Bro, Seems like they were tesing ur mental fitness too, Nyways nice experience :)
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