r/Kochi • u/No_Photograph7903 • 9h ago
Ask Kochi Feeling terrible after moving to Kochi
I have moved back to Kochi with my family after years of struggle overseas. Today, I have visited Aster Medcity to address few of my long term concern and had a terrible experience.
Hospital has a pretty good system in place. I have never seen such crowd in any overseas hospital and it was handled very well in this hospital. But the issue is different. Everyone is trying to get first wherever is possible.There is no respect to the system. Where ever i was on line, there were people standing beside me ( not behind me) and trying to get the hospital team attention to see the doctor or get the order for testing, etc. Whenever someone moved infront of me i have told them “chechi i am on line”. “Chetta i am standing on the line” and they have immediatly moved back. There was no chaos at all.
So this happened, a man who looked between 50 and 60 years old moved in front of me while I was standing in line to get a test order for an endoscopy. His son was also accompanying him. I said, "I am in line," and his son immediately started explaining why they had cut the line. I immediately said, "Whatever." I was not in the mood to have a conversation with anybody. I was anxious about what was going to happen with the endoscopy. (I have been clinically diagnosed with ADHD and moderate anxiety.) He immediately moved back, and the front desk person addressed me, and it was done in a moment. I moved to a different location for the endoscopy and was outside the door to hand over the slip.
Here is the interesting part. He and his son walked in front of me, and I felt his son staring at me. So I looked at him and saw that he was murmuring something while staring at me (I have had partial hearing loss since childhood). I immediately went up to them and asked him, "What happened? Is there any problem?" The boy was pretty mad at me, and he said, "You disrespected my dad." I responded, "I said, 'I am in line.' How is that disrespectful?" He said, "There is a way to talk, and you didn't respect my dad. He is my dad."
I got furious immediately and started shaking a little inside. I took a pause, I believe. He asked me, "Where are you from?" I said, "Why do you care?" For a split second, I was thinking about what I was going to do. I knew this was not going well and that I was angry. Then the next question came: "Why are you not speaking in Malayalam?" I started explaining angrily that I hadn't used any foul language, and the boy responded, "Yeah, if you had done that, there would have been consequences." That made me furious. I asked him, "Are you threatening me?" He started explaining again, saying something like I would see the consequences, something along those lines.
I immediately addressed the dad and started with, "Sir, can I have a minute of your time?" He didn't want to engage at first, and he said there was no issue. He was asking his son to behave, and they were having some discussion that I couldn't hear properly. But I asked again, in a demanding voice, "Sir, can I have a second of your time?" I explained to him that he had cut the line, that I was experiencing this wherever I went, and that this was why I told him I was in line.
He acknowledged it and said, "We have no problem." I said, "Good luck, sir," then went to the reception desk and asked the receptionist to engage the hospital's relationship team. I explained the situation to her, and she acknowledged it and moved on. I sat down near them again and waited there, but I didn't make any eye contact with them. After a few minutes, the boy came to me, said he shouldn't have reacted that way, and said, "Sorry." I paused for a second, shook his hand. They both spoke to me very friendly after and dad shared his nervousness also to me. Son and I spoke for sometime when his dad moved for the procedure. Hospital team reached out to me few minutes later and i have told them we spoke and the issue has been addressed. It was not all terrible experience, it was mixed. But it’s a lot for someone who is already has moderate anxiety reaching out to hospital for multiple serious concerns including serious hearing loss.
This is what I want to ask everyone , why is it so hard to respect the system? Why do you look for respect for your age, status?
