The Last Wish - Please Come Back

It has been more than 11 years now that I have been working in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department. 

Time and again I see instances where an equally old husband/wife comes all alone with their old ailing spouse, a patient who requires an ICU admission, a quick decision to be put on a ventilator, get thrombolysed for a stroke, be immediately taken to Cath Lab for a heart attack or to the OT for emergency surgery. On further inquiry, the picture becomes clear that their children are well settled abroad, leaving the old couple back home to fend for themselves, only sending them money for their existence.

Many times I have myself spoken on phone to the son/daughter of the patient, staying thousands of miles away, briefing them of their parent’s condition and receiving the same reply, “Please go ahead do your best, whatever it takes. Don’t worry about the cost of the treatment & the investigations.” Seldom have I heard anyone say, “Doctor, you proceed, we will be there soon.” It really hurts me to the core…. At the end of the day, I feel that the only people who can leave everything behind (for want of money/better quality of life) and never look back at their own parents, are those who are selfish and self-centred.

With the following few lines, I have only tried to bring out the pain, the feeling and the thought process of such a patient lying on the bed, right before my eyes in my A&E.

I’m weak now, I can’t even walk,
You became all busy, with no time to talk,
Education gave you wings, I showed you the way,
Our life is difficult now, alone we stay,
Please come back… Please come back

The money you sent, few phone calls you made,
Never made us happy, wish together we stayed,
Not playing with your kids, not meeting your wife,
What wrong did we do, to deserve such a life?
Please come back… Please come back

I fight to breathe now, with pain in my chest,
Remembering old times, I did my best,
I might die soon, do you really bother?
After I’m gone, who' ll look after your mother,
Please come back… Please come back

These tubes and pipes on me, really make me think,
Wish I could see you all, and not even blink,
In my dying moments, by my bedside you stand,
Consider it’s my last wish, come hold my hand,
Please come back... Please come back

(06/12/12)

Seize the golden moments after a heart attack.

The sudden death of singer KK today was a shocking news for music lovers and his fans across the world. What was even more shocking was that he showed the typical symptoms of a heart attack including sudden onset chest uneasiness and profuse sweating, which was not recognised in time. Off course he could have survived if the all important ' PAL - In the Golden Hours' would not have been wasted. Read on to find out more.

Heart Diseases are the number one killer in India. A Heart attack is caused when a clot completely blocks a blood vessel in the heart.

Worldwide, people fail to identify heart attack symptoms on time or seek appropriate medical help.

Post a heart attack, the heart muscle starts to die within 60-90 minutes after it stops getting blood, and within six hours, almost all the affected parts of the heart could be irreversibly damaged.

As a consequence of damaged heart muscles, either the heart can go into a sudden complete standstill, or into abnormal heart rhythms called “ventricular tachycardia” and “ventricular fibrillation” where the heart muscles contract at a rapid rate, without any active pumping of blood from the heart – called as a cardiac arrest. A person with a cardiac arrest will be unresponsive, will not be breathing and will not have a pulse.

Cardiac arrest occurs suddenly, disrupting the blood flow to the brain and other parts of the body. Lack of oxygen causes irreversible damage to vital organs, and within minutes, patients die.

Most patients don’t get another chance if heart attack is not treated in time.

The first hour of definitive medical care is called the “golden hour”. Nearly 47 % of deaths occur due to cardiac arrests during this period, even before an individual reaches the hospital. It is a window of opportunity to the patients, their families, and doctors to take appropriate and quick actions, thereby impacting a patient’s survival and quality of life following a heart attack.

Reaching a hospital, which has an in-house cardiac cath lab, within this Golden Hour period, provides emergency physicians and cardiologists ample time to perform ECGs, appropriate diagnostic tests and scans on the patient to ascertain the occurrence of heart attack and the extent of damage, and take necessary steps to reinstate proper blood flow to the heart immediately.

A person who reaches the hospital and gets treated within this period can expect near-complete recovery.

Hence, “Golden Hour” becomes “the game-changing event” in saving the life of the patient.

Note: Global Hospital, Mumbai provides multidisciplinary, extensive emergency medical services to all patients, with the highest level of care, and is capable of offering definitive treatment for any type of cardiac emergencies. We have a 24 hour functioning Cath lab, Operation theatres, blood bank, NABL accredited laboratory and Radiology department.

With our comprehensive emergency medical services, we are able to care for the most life threatening emergencies at a moment’s notice.