Day 134, Wednesday, 28th March, 2012: Zalm

The vetical shades that hid the night from view did nothing to keep out the early morning sun as they were white. Thus, I woke up at about 5:00 a.m.! I snuggled back inside the covers and slept some more in the new environs of my shared room in the campus of Zalm General Hospital, and wondered what the day had in store for me. Finally, my room-mate and I both got up at a little after 7:00 a.m. and dressed to go to the hospital for the day's work. 

 Earlier, I was called to the ER twice to see some sick children, and so, I had had less sleep than what I normally get, but both the children, thankfully, had nothing serious, and I could dispatch both of them after some basic tests and a prescription that they could continue the treatment with, at home.

The adjoining photo and the one below show the ER of the hospital.

A view of the parking lot outside the main hospital building

Zalm, like Al Muweh hospital, is more like a primary health center. and although it has intensive care units, a fully functional operation theatre, and all the equipment money can buy, these facilities are not in use, either due to the lack of trained personnel or the lack of initiative. It is also possible that many such hospitals all over Saudi Arabia are meant to serve just local communities in lieu of a robust private medical practice set-up in this country. Most of these hospitals are staffed by expatriates, such as doctors from other countries of the Arabian Gulf, Pakistan, India and so on, nurses from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and so on, and subordinate staff from the entire Indian peninsula including a horde of people from Bangla Desh.  

Only the admininstrative staff is local, and is culled from the same region as the hospital. The situation in Zalm was no different, but the difference was that the administrative staff seemed a whole lot more competent than the ones I have met elsewhere. The hospital itself looks shiny and new, and most of its departments are functional and well-maintained. The resident doctors were all respectful and polite, the nurses, extremely charming, friendly and efficient, and the subordinate staff , helpful and keen. 

The next few pictures are of the room allotted to me (the one on the extreme left), and the access route to it from outside the hospital. 

The door that leads to the stairs on the first floor to the doctors' residence area

The entrance door to my room

 The next three pictures show the door of the room I shared with Dr. Prakasan, the room itself (with my bed) and the chairs in the lobby outside where the canteen service left our lunches and dinners for us to come and collect it ourselves. To their credit, however, it must be said that the lunches were packed hygienically. The main problem was that all the lunches were identical to each other, with sheer monotony preventing me from partaking of the dinner served to me on the next two days, but more of that later. 

My room

The lobby chairs

Sister Gracie in the Pediatric OPD

Today being a working day, I was required to stay in the out-patient department from eight o'clock till four p,m,, with an hour's break from noon till 1:00 p.m. for lunch and afternoon prayers. The nurse in the Pediatric OPD was one sister Gracie, a Filipino who was very efficient. Of course, it is quite a thing to say that she was efficient, because we saw a grand total of just FIVE patients, none critical, over the entire spell of seven hours! During the day, I also managed to hospitalise one child from the ER, a case of sore throat with high fever, and in the night, one infant with an accidental ingestion of one or two tablets of an antidepressant that his grandmother was using at home. Both the children stayed in the hospital for just one day, going home the next day. 


All my meals were sponsored by the hospital, and on Wednesday, I ate my breakfast and lunch in the canteen. Dinner was sent to the doctors' quarters and was left on the chairs outside in the lobby as it was the night before. 

Dr. Prakasan, my room-mate

Alfaaz, at the cafeteria outside the hospital

After clinic hours, I went back to the room and whiled away the evening doing this and that - but mostly surfing the net and reading some stuff from the study material I was carrying with me. At about a quarter to six, Dr. Prakasan and I went out for a small amble, reaching one of the only two main arterial roads, where we crossed over to the opposite side to have tea in a local cafeteria. The sole person who served us our tea was a fellow-Indian by the quaint name of Alfaaz. He comes from Allahabad, the city in Uttar Pradesh which is on the bank of the river Yamuna. (This is also the city from where the great Amitabh Bachchan came to Mumbai to become a huge, huge superstar and a movie thespian the like of whom I have not seen in my entire life-time.)

After tea, we returned to the hospital, where perchance, I discovered that there was a password-protected wireless signal on my mobile. With some poking around, I had the password, and so, I sat near their "control room" and surfed the net for free for about an hour or so. At about half past eight, I went outside for my daily walk. Out of the hospital, I walked all the length of the small village and back, to register a distance of 3.25 km. I stopped at a grocery/convenience store for a banana and a bottle of water. Arriving back in the hospital, I continued walking around the hospital for some more time, so that I had logged in 5.25 km in all, burning about 250 calories. (My Samsung Ace has a downloaded app called Sports Tracker which uses GPS technology to monitor your exercise after you have entered in all the details. It will also display your speed, your pace, the map of the path you took, and if you connected a heart-rate monitor, a graph of the heart rate that you achieved during the given exercise. It also allows you to share the exercise parameters on Facebook and other social applications if you are connected to the net.)

After this, I returned to my room where Dr. Prakasan and I had dinner, and after some chatting with him, I opened my PC to surf the net. I went to sleep at a little after one a.m. 

That's it for now.

Days 81-85, the entire working week

As stated by me in my previous entry, the week that was was a horrible one for two reasons: my co-Pediatrician Dr. Yasser worked only on Saturday, and then went on leave, so I was alone; and two, the weather changed suddenly for the worse (it became much more cold), so that children came in huge numbers with respiratory illnesses, both to the OPD and to the ER. On any of these five days, I had at least 8 patients in the ward and up to three calls in the night. 


I had barely any time to explore the net, or check out my favourite web-sites or email, let alone time to publish the blog entries. On last Monday, I had to refer three patients to the larger Children's Hospital in Ta'if. This irked the residents since I had insisted that one of them accompany each of the patients in the ambulance.


In between, I managed to cook simple food, and I had to do this, as I had been away the last weekend and there was no ready food. The pakora kadhi satiated me for two meals and a breakfast (which I had with brown, whole wheat bread). I also made do with a few meals at one of the local eateries, and at least two lunches in the hospital cafeteria. I could not leave the hospital premises for lunch at home (something that I usually do as I go home with Dr. Narendra in his car), so I brought fruits, slices of buttered bread or something similar to have in the afternoon.


In the evenings, I continued my routine of walking and jogging on at least 3 of the five days. The other two days - I was busy on one of them, and plain lethargic and not in the mood on the second. I "skyped" with the family on two or three days, making up to them with a call to one of my daughters or Nishrin on the remaining days.


The work-centred week made me realise that things can change, and change rapidly, in this country. The cold wave that came in did so quite fast, and brought with it a wave of illnesses that made work so heavy. Just as suddenly, though, the intensity of work declined on Tuesday evening, and by Wednesday, the OPD and ER work had reduced considerably, the wards emptied out, and I had, finally on the Wednesday, not a single night call. 


Of course, my on-call continues through the week-end, but, if the trend is anything to go by, I should have an easy weekend.


On Wednesday evening, I prepared Dal, chopped and fried onions, marinaded some chicken and made a light mixed vegetable. I would make chicken, rice and may be some more food over the weekend ... lets see.

The Weekend that was: Days 51 and 52, Thursday 5th and Friday 6th January, 2012

The past two days, comprising the weekend, were rather drab, as I was free from duties but sitting in my house and roaming about the town - with no opportunities for an outlet or trip elsewhere. This will continue to be my routine as long as I do not obtain my Iqama. So be it.


Dr. Niaz and I have gradually begun to come closer: he has begun to cook food in a rather quaint way; he usually boils chicken/meat in a large pot with water, salt, chillies and tomatoes. He seems to enjoy this soupy food. As a result, I am unable at most times to share my food with him. However, on Thursday, I offered to share bhajiyas and batata-wadas made by me, and he did have a small helping; on Friday, I served him egg omlette with chapati, and his response was very favourable. He called the fare "excellent". I also made lady fingers this weekend. I am waiting for him to have that. On Thursday evening, we ate home food, but on Friday, we both ate at the Kerala Hotel (Hotel Malabar) located behind our house area abutting the main highway. While I enjoyed fish curry with chapatis/dosai, he had chicken masala with the same accompaniments.


Our walks take us to the Al Moweh garden every evening after Ishaa prayers. Dr. Niaz, initially a reluctant walker, has now become as eager as me to do the walk; he actually bought pumps to wear on his feet. His pace is also quicker now, and he seems to enjoy walking as much as I do. Good for him, as he, too, is a diabetic and has recently put on weight. (He is nearly a dozen years younger than me, though.)


I had a long video chat with my family on Friday evening, and that was a great thing!