You are just a companion, He is the true healer.

It’s Friday again. It’s time for another emergency room shift. I try to sleep early on Thursday night so that I can wake up early next morning. I live far from the hospital where I work. It is a large public sector teaching hospital of the most populous city of the largest province of my country. The drive to the hospital is usually forty to forty minutes on a good day. However, often times traffic is slow because of some accident down the road. Everyone is in a hurry in the morning, and as a result, one can see all sorts of collisions among cars, bikes and buses. Cars are easy to stay away from, but bikers give me the most trouble. I am driving straight in my lane thinking of what lives I am going to save today, and the next thing I notice is a bike about to collide with my car. Here comes a loud horn to get attention of the biker who is only looking ahead as most of them have had side mirrors removed from their bikes.

I finally reach the hospital, say hello to the security guard at the parking entrance, park my car usually in the second basement, and head straight towards the emergency room. Emergency room is right across the street from the main hospital building. There is an underpass which connects both. On the entrance of that underpass, there is an inscription written which reads:

I read it, internalize it and enter the emergency room not knowing what patients I am going to treat today, how many lives will be saved and how many will die as our treatments would fail them.

After greeting the residents and interns who have arrived already before me, I would ask, is anyone missing or late? And there will always be someone who is either missing or late. The senior resident would then start a brief investigation and try to locate the remaining team members. All will eventually come in. I am lucky that I get to work with some of the most amazing residents and interns in our hospital who are eager to not only learn, but also serve.

The day would start slow. It is early morning, people are still waking up in their homes, moms and dads are dropping kids off to schools, the working class is navigating the roads of the city and the laborers are lining up across main roads with their tools in the hope of finding some work. I could hear residents and interns chirping among themselves about what they are going to have in breakfast and lunch, who is going to work with who, and in what order they are going to take some time off. This is the best time of the day for them.

Soon, the patients would start to pour in. A young lady with fever and headache, a middle aged man with uncontrolled blood sugars and an ulcer under the foot, a young boy who passed out while going to school, a pregnant lady who is referred from obstetrical unit with low platelets—so on and so forth. The beds would fill up in a couple of hours and soon we will have two patients on each bed, and then three. Most of them would accommodate one another as they know that they would have to spend huge amounts of money if they go to a private hospital.

Right across the reception desk, there is a large standing billboard which reads: All the medicines in the emergency room have been provided free of charge on the directions of chief minister. And then there is a complaint number too written at the end of above message to lodge a complaint if anyone tells them to get medicines from outside.

We would start treating all the patients as they arrive. Antibiotics injections, pain killers, intravenous fluids, and drawing blood samples for laboratory tests—all sorts of interventions would start happening. I would see hope on faces of patients who will be improving. Despair and agony would be visible on faces of family members of patients who will be deteriorating. Sometimes a patient will improve within minutes and other times, a similar patient would deteriorate despite having the same treatment. There will be a lot of surprises despite all the medical knowledge and skills we have. Soon the emergency room pharmacy will run out of one or more of the medications and then we will be contemplating its alternatives. For patients getting admitted, we would be satisfying our inner selves by saying that ‘‘even if the patient did not get it here, he or she will get it in the ward’’.

There will be many who will go home better and happy. And there will be many who will be admitted for further treatment in the inpatient ward. And there will be some who would die in the emergency room despite all our efforts. The 12 hour shift would end. All the residents and interns will hand over patients to the next time and then go home.

I would leave too and on way back to the parking, entering that underpass that connects the main hospital building with the emergency room, I would read that inscription again: ‘‘ You are just a companion, and He (The God Almighty), is the true healer’’.