Entertaining Hospitals

My son burst into my conference room during a meeting panting, ‘Are you all right? So many cars parked outside bearing the Doctor stickers from so many hospitals. I told you not to worry about my grades in college…’ ‘Slow down young man, there is nothing wrong with me. All the hospitals are in a quandary due to some court ruling and since it’s a common problem, I have called all of them together.’ ‘Oh a group therapy’ he smartly observed. ‘No such thing, but you may sit and we will go home together’ I told him, secretly hoping to turn his career to follow mine though I knew in the hearts of hearts he would prefer dealing with computers than humans.

Dr. Shah the respected general surgeon continued his presentation, ‘Sir, we request you to amputate the problem set by this court ruling and design some prosthetic as a strategic consultant to have status quo in our hospital management.’ My son’s jaw dropped and all he said was ‘Huh?’ I translated for him the interweaved medical jargon, that the hospitals were seeking a legal way to avoid paying entertainment tax on the TVs provided in the hospital premises and I was expected to provide them the strategic solution.

Dr. Percy, administrator of an old General Hospital in South Mumbai said, ‘Since our patients are from the upper class who normally see only English and art films, we are contemplating putting advertisements of which films are being beamed in our TVs.’ This was a ludicrous competitive strategy which invited my wrath. ‘Do you really think that as an ambulance is transporting a patient who just had an heart attack to some other hospital and if your hospital is on the route, he will peer out of the wailing ambulance and noting his favorite film being shown in your hospital, will ask the driver to detour to your hospital? So saying, I opened my arms expecting laughter to embrace me but all I got was a stunned silence of agreement. Dr. Saxena from the Plastic and Reconstruction hospital which was reputed to profit only from cosmetic surgery especially bust enlargement said, ‘We were contemplating item girl live dances every evening. Since TVs will be taken out, our patients accepted suggestion of live dancers’. I was livid with their line of thinking, ‘You mean to say, now Rakhee Sawant will come to your hospital in her professional capacity and not yours? Besides with so many female patients you will need Abraham instead.’ Dr. Saxena said, ‘Our market research has even concluded that such live entertainment will tilt the decision in our favor of those potential patients sitting on the fence thinking whether they want a face lift or just an out patient Botox.’

‘Don’t be childish in starting such a competition. You are here, united for a cause so let us find a common solution other than going to the higher court’ I tried to direct the flow of the meeting.

‘Let us go back to the root of the issue.’ I suggested. ‘When and how did this entertainment start in the first place?’ ‘He did!’ all shouted in unison pointing at a Hospital Administrator of an old hospital. ‘Now blame it on me’ the meek man was almost in tears. ‘We are not playing a blame game but a solution hunting game if you please’ this medical fraternity was getting on my nerves. The meek man stammered, ‘Our British Associate was providing channel music to their patients in the fifties. We did not do that but jumped straight to providing televisions. Initially, the televisions were placed in the costly special rooms then the non-ac special rooms then to the wards.’

‘But why was channel music and TV provided in the first place?’ asked my son. Dr. Vichare the psychiatrist of a Mumbai North hospital offered some explanation, ‘I remember having read in the library that music has soothing effect which provides impetus to the body for faster healing. You all know what music does to improve the yield of milk of cows and buffaloes’ he reminded us. Now we were getting some place. I summarized, ‘Earlier the channel music, and now the Television is providing some sort of therapy for faster healing so simply call the televisions ….. Therapeutic Vehicles (TV for short) which carry signals to the ears and eyes for faster healing. That created one round of applause as all busy scribbled on their pads which though I could see, could not read what anyone had written.

‘Perhaps we can turn the clock back and provide just channel music’ suggested Dr. Kanhere, the Gynecologist. I stared at him wide eyed, ‘I hope the milk yield improvement on animals is not your conclusion of it working for humans without research proof.’ Red faced, he denied such an intention. ‘I would not take such a chance’ I told him, ‘because, instead of the milk yield improvement, if all your patients have baby yield improvement like twins in all cases, you will be doing our nation a dis-service.’ Trying to educate them I reminded them that though the entertainment tax may be avoided, they would have to seek periodical license and pay the fees (also periodically) to Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS).’What if we give them iPods capable of MP3 and MP4 playback?’ stammered Dr. Kanhere. This sent me into raptures as I reminded him, ‘The New York Governor is planning an iPod Tax and since India apes the West so well, this will be the new tax by March which is just 3 months away. So, your iPod will be a tactical measure and not a strategic one.’

‘What about the few big screens we had planted in the lobby and waiting rooms? You had suggested we put near the lift doors on the ground floor since the lifts were slow’. Dr. Desai reminded me of a textbook strategy I had prescribed a few months earlier, to reduce tension of persons waiting to be served. Now, my own strategy was creating a problem due to changed circumstances. I was in quandary, since criticizing my own act would be like asking my fiancé to return the ring I just presented because I later realized the installments on the diamond were too high for my salary. I would lose both. ‘What are you showing on these screens?’ I was bidding for some thinking time in the corner he had pushed me into. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, ‘Maybe news or whatever channel the receptionist has set.’ ‘There!’ I shouted and he jumped. ‘Remote in hands of a third party means you are showing something that the people may not want to see and entertainment occurs only when people see what they want to see.’ All scribbled making me happy until one smart young Doctor from a clinic they called hospital asked, ‘I hope that is a legal definition of entertainment’. I merely nodded.