Lockington's Everyday Fiji ... Life Goes On

Allen Lockington is a self-employed customs agent and business consultant who has regular articles published in Fiji. I thank Allen for permission to reprint some of them in this political blog. They remind us that life goes on, whatever the political situation. And it's good to know that.

Narayana Hrudayalaya

A good friend (Sumanth, not his real name) has just returned from India after undergoing open heart surgery. He had gone to Brisbane and never really thought of which hospital he would go to. While he was there at his mother’s home Indian nationals visitors suggested to him the Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals in Bangalore India. He went on to the Internet and checked the name and asked for a quotation. He got an immediate response. He had asked for quotations from many hospitals around the world including Australia and New Zealand but he got a reasonable quote and precise explanation on the procedure that would be done. He was impressed and took the offer.

When he got there he was impressed. The  Jade Emperor hotel was only two minutes from the hosptial and his sister and mother went there to stay. He had asked for quotes because his relatives had pitched in to assist with his medical expenses and didn’t want to go somewhere and get a poor job done. We have heard of people spending thousands of hard earned money going overseas for extensive surgery to only came back and die in a very short time.

At the hospital he was treated so well that he equated it to a Five Star hotel. Everyone was treated the same. Race, age, religion and monetary status was not an issue. The hospital compound had a mosque, a Hindu temple and a Christian chapel.  At night doctors and nurses were always available and there  a notice at the nurses’ station saying that if the desk was vacant a patient could pick up the telephone and call another ward and doctors or nurses would come over immediately or they would find someone who was free. 

The hospital has only one owner and all complaints go to him and he deals with them personally. My mate marveled at housekeeping. Everything including the toilets and bathrooms were always spotless. My mate joked that the toilet was cleaner than some homes in Fiji. When I asked to compare it to our local hospital toilets, he said, “Allen, just don’t go there.” Patients are woken at 5am and the bed sheets, blanket, pillow cases and uniforms are changed.

The owner meets all foreign nationals personally and he made it a point to ask how he was being treated. The hospital also has cardiology, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, hematology and transplant services, and nephrology. The staff, medical and ancillary were so friendly he was made to feel like he was at home.

Twelve hours after his surgery he was roused and made to sit up. Ten hours later a physiotherapist took over and he was made to walk around the ward with a nurse who was constantly asking him questions. He spent three days in the ITU Intensive Treatment Unit. After that he was transferred to the general ward  to recuperate, but it was in a room with four beds, two in each cubicle. They had air conditioning and TV that had 101 channels. He found it rather amusing when the other patients brought the remote control to him to change the channel. Then they surfed the many stations until they arrived at one they all agreed on.

The hospital has a medical school with surgeons as lecturers where they train their nurses. And the hospital owns a fleet to transport staff FOC! They also have their own powerhouse because power fluctuates. A wise investment indeed. The hospital compound is pretty big and there are go carts available FOC to transport patients to and fro and the lifts have attendants. 

Sumanth says he was so happy about the facilities and the service at the hospital that the people of Fiji should know about it.  He had heard of people making a commission by arranging for operations for people in Fiji. There are many conmen around who are doing this and one such case recently was the Fiji National University where  some people said they were acting on behalf of the university. We have to teach our people not to be taken for a ride and lose money to so called agents when they can go directly to the university or the hospital. Sumanth also found out that there were people in Australia and New Zealand who are acting as agents for the hospital and taking money from the poor and vulnerable. It’s a shame how low our very own people stoop to, to make money. We need to tell the people not to fall prey to these people. Government has to reach out and inform the people that when they are sick and need overseas medical treatment they do not need an agent to act for them.

But back to Sumanth and his travel. Four days after the operation friends took him on a tour of Karnataka (the state) and this is what he saw and was awed by it.  In the city proper he never saw anyone with short pants and everyone seemed to have long sleeve shirts. Then he noticed someone with shorts and then he realised the man had a dhoti on. He smiled to himself and waved at the man and he waved back. Sumanth thought about his grandpa who came from India and always wore a dhoti.    Then he suddenly noticed that people were staring at him and he realised that they were looking at his three-quarter length Lee jeans. When he made eye contact the person would nod and wave, realising he was a tourist.  And guess what!  He was a foreigner! Interesting, eh. Back home in Fiji some would call him  a non Fijian.

His mother asked if they could go and see Hanuman's temple and they stopped a motorcyclist and he said, “Follow me.” And the man drove about two miles to get there and at the temple he bade them goodbye and when they offered to pay him he said, “You are guests in my country, enjoy yourself.” Sumanth and his family were bewildered by this act. Then they visited a flea market and it was so big it was like Churchill Park and ground No. 2 multiplied by two.   Thanks to the mobile phone, when they got separated they just called and met at a certain point.

Sumanth noticed the number of motorcycles buzzing by and then he spotted an Indian lady, sari and all zoom by, without a safety helmet.  And right behind her a young lady in a sari; chug by with one hand on a mobile phone and the other holding a notebook and taking to someone. She disappeared into the heavy traffic and all was well. Then another motorcycle chugged pass with five  people on it. The father was driving with mother sitting behind him. She had a child in her arms, one at the back of her holding on, and one asleep in front of the man asleep in the fuel tank. Only the man had a helmet.

Stunned, he turned his attention to a liquor shop and he wondered by to see the cost of booze. He noticed men walk in and after about 15 to 20 minutes they walked out again without buying anything. The he noticed that the bottle shop had a little corner when a busy person could buy a nip or a double take a swig and move on. No one lingered more than half an hour. He scratched his head and wondered if our liquor shops were to do that. Chaos? Maybe. But he thinks the culture over there was like that. People didn’t drink to get drunk.

Then he spotted street sweepers.  There were two men and three women and he asked them if he could photograph them. They agreed and he noticed they had sasa brooms in their hands. He laughed out loud and told his mother and wife. But they had been to India many times before and said, “Why, what’s wrong with that, at least the women will sweep cleaner.” He envisioned women in Fiji sweeping the streets!

Then his mum said that they had to go to the Post office so they could send some clothes to Fiji. The saris that cost an arm and a leg in Fiji were so cheap in Bangalore he wonders how much profit our traders were making. At the Post Office the employee took the clothes and shook them out. It was a border control check. He made sure that only clothes were in the box and then filled out the postal declaration. Then the Postal officer sealed the carton and sewed cloth around it. We often see little packages wrapped/stitched in white cloth at the Post Office. It is done by the employee. Sumanth wonders if Post Fiji could do the same – people who want to send parcels from Fiji have to pack them at the counter and then the Post Fiji employee seals the parcel. Bangalore has a population of six million;  most things seemed to be done efficiently. Police officers were all over the place and he saw only six beggars.

When he revisited the hospital a nurse asked him how he could speak Hindi so well and she asked where he was from. But she spoke a different language, not dialect, it was a different language and his friend who spoke it said he was from Fiji. It was just as if they had told her he was from the moon. They tried to explain to her and many more interested hospital staff gathered and someone brought an atlas. When they point to the spot that was Fiji they laughed good-naturedly and, “Sir, don’t joke, that is the deep blue sea.”  When Sumanth insisted and they realised he was serious they looked at the map again and nodded in disbelief. India is about 1,269,346 square miles, Fiji is 7,054. Then he sat down to explain things and he wonders if Tourism Fiji could go to Bangalore and do some marketing and perhaps sell Fiji to the founder of the hospital Dr. Devi Shetty. Bangalore was chosen as the location of the hospital since his family members refused to finance a heart hospital in any other place. Financial contribution for the construction of the hospital was provided by Dr. Shetty's father-in-law. (Wikipedia)

While Sumanth was talking about the hospital I went onto the Internet and Googled it. What I saw amazed me.  Perhaps someone reading about Sumanth’s  trip to India will take the time to check on this hospital and get them to come over build one here. They have the money, the expertise and the go. Well,  we are looking East now that Australia and New Zealand  have chosen to reduce their assistance. We could do with good medical facilities at a reasonable cost. They (India) make this seem so easy and European countries make it look so hard and of course they are expensive.

And remember in one of my earlier articles I mentioned that few millionaires want to invest in Fiji and move here because they know about our existing medical facilities. No offence to the Ministry of Health and other medical facilities. But if you can guarantee something like the  Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals in Bangalore India, then please do it.

Readers wishing to contact the hospital will find their addresses on their website. Leave a message with a customer care person and they will get back to you. With Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals, Doctor Devi Shetty's email address is in the contact us column. We can learn from him and his team what a good hospital is like.