Short ‘N’ Snappy

MMM

Advertising your way to (ill)-health

Chennai that was Madras is the medical capital of our country, as is well known. It also probably has the maximum number of private hospitals per square kilometre in India. When it comes to density of doctors, however, in the view of The Man from Madras Musings, it is probably pipped to the finishing post by Trichy, which has two doctors for every street. When asked by MMM, locals averred that almost all of them have good practice, chiefly treating patients who flock from the mofussil. On lean days, MMM assumes they get by treating each other.

This prosperity is apparently not vouchsafed to the hospitals in Chennai, several of whom, so MMM is given to understand, are going around banks, cap in hand, and asking if they (the banks) could spare a few crores or so. Many promoters of hospitals, MMM hears, are as sick as mud and it is a wonder that they are not admitting themselves into their creations for treatment, thereby bumping up the creation’s balance sheet.

All of this was rather surprising to MMM, who in the past few months has had to visit a few hospitals, thankfully not as a patient but as an attendant to the elderly. Most of these facilities gave MMM the impression of bursting at the seams with people particularly from the east, northeast and ‘Middle East’, all of them with wads of cash, ready to spend on several illnesses, some real, others imagined. But that, according to those in the know, is all illusory, rather like life as depicted in Hindu philosophy. The number of people in any hospital, say these industry watchers, is no indication of the actual billing. Each patient apparently is accompanied by at least four attendants and these are not in any way adding to the cash counters. And, so, the billing is actually just one-fifth in proportion to the number of people milling around.

It is probably owing to these difficult times that MMM noticed a few advertisements released by hospitals in Chennai. The first one, by a facility better known to set right your bones but clearly wanting a share of your heart, had the following message:

Are you en route to heart failure?
If so, come and join our heart failure camp.

MMM, on reading this wondered if the camp was meant to ensure a heart failure. But surely that was something that the mere sight of the bill for treatment could have ensured. Then there was this other one, seen sometime ago:

Are you diabetic? Then this exhibition is for you
Are your parents diabetic? Then this exhibition is for you
Are you over fifty and overweight? Then this exhibition is for you
Are you not diabetic? Then this exhibition is for you

Clearly this was one of those exhibitions that cater to all tastes. But none of these campaigns are making the cash registers ring.

Adding to the woes of these hospitals is the Great Surcharge Tax, aka GST. Many patients develop additional complications when they see this amount added to the already inflated bill. MMM was witness to several of them roundly cursing the powers-that-be for having formulated this tax. The swearing at was in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic oath.

Postman’s knock

The Chief is rather addicted to a game called Postman’s Knock. Not so The Man from Madras Musings who much prefers his relations with the postman to be purely platonic. But there are days when MMM’s path crosses that of his postman and this month has been one such. That, however, was not because of it being the festival of light when postmen and other creations of God suddenly become much too visible.

The first indication of a real knock came about when MMM opened the post box and took possession of the mail. Among the missives that had landed at chez MMM was one of those black-bordered Government letters that are open to one and all for reading. MMM got the shock of his life when on perusing it he found it to be a tax demand for a figure that stretched to six digits. Having tottered to a nearby chair and restored himself with a glass of water (MMM is abstemious in the extreme), MMM read it more carefully and this did not help. The note, terse to a degree, declared that this was the last and final letter that the tax authorities were sending. It was tantamount to a parting of ways. But they were not done with that. Live and let live was clearly not their policy. Now that the receiver of the notice had proven that he was a malapert knave, the tax authorities had decided to take possession of the property on which the sum referred to above had been due since time immemorial. In short, they had decided to render MMM homeless.

The letter fell from MMM’s nerveless fingers. It fell front upwards and it was then that MMM noted that the notice was not for MMM at all. It was for a sports facility not far from MMM’s demesne. MMM’s relief was considerably mixed with righteous wrath. What business had the postman to deliver such a letter to the wrong address thereby causing in MMM palpitations, a heightening of blood pressure and a sense of imminent doom? No doubt a significant percentage of MMM’s longevity had been reduced by this letter landing at his doorstep.

It was then that MMM turned his attention to the other letters. He was quite surprised to find them all addressed to various people in the neighbourhood. Not one of these was meant for MMM. He then made enquiries with the watchman at his premises and sure enough that functionary had the answer. MMM’s house, said the watchman, was the oldest residence on the road. And the postman was in a hurry. He had thrown everything into MMM’s postbox because he was sure MMM knew all the recipients and so would ensure that everyone received their mail! Talk about subcontracting in a service economy!

Tailpiece

And so Moonlight is back among us, visiting her Dancing Lord who is recovering from a serious illness. What amused The Man from Madras Musings was the way all the local TV channels kept saying that Moonlight had come home on ‘Barole. That is the local lingo for you.

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