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Inside delhi

It is not without reason that the common man is sceptical about availing of treatment at government hospitals. A friend found this out recently while rushing her child, who had high fever, to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital late at night.

While the hospital is counted among the best in the government sector, what this ailing child’s mother found left her shaken.

She was advised to go to the paediatric section and after her child was seen by the doctor on duty and assured that the problem was nothing more than a stomach flu, she was advised to get the child’s temperature taken again.

“I took my child to the nurse on duty and told her that I wanted to get his temperature checked. To my horror she said that the department had only one mercury thermometer and that too was not working too well,” said she.

She then asked the nurse how the temperature of children admitted to the hospital was being taken. She was told that most patients come with their own thermometer and that the department did have a thermometer which had not been released from the store, resulting in a shortage.

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

A surprise

In the list of casualties on account of Monday’s dense fog, the one name that was conspicuous by its absence was the Capital’s power department. With fog known to play havoc with power transmission lines, Monday’s uninterrupted supply came as a pleasant surprise.

The city had plunged into darkness this past winter when fog played spoilsport and forced shutdown of as many as 20 critical power lines within hours on more than one occasion.

Lest Monday’s occurrence be brushed aside as nature’s benevolence, Delhi Transco Limited, the city’s power utility, was quick to claim credit. It explained how the city’s power lines were saved from fog’s wrath because of “proper maintenance of the transmission system”.

In a statement, it credited the hot line washing of insulators conducted on 400 kV rings and other initiatives for keeping the city alight.

“It is a normal thing in winters. Heavy fog results in tripping of power system. But due to timely and adequate maintenance there was no system constraints today and the demand was met successfully,” it said.

Smriti Kak Ramachandran

Business sense

Delhiites famous for their shrewd business sense can be trusted to find an opportunity in every adversity. But sometimes this can produce rather hilarious results as was demonstrated by a recent incident narrated by a friend.

Walking towards the Inner Circle of Connaught Place around 8:30 p.m., he suddenly stopped in his tracks upon hearing a loud sound from a distance. Rushing in the direction of the sound, he discovered that an accident had taken place at the spot where the road turned and two motorists had been hit by a runaway car and fallen off their motorbike.

Though fully conscious, they had abrasions on their arms and were facing great difficulty in getting back on their feet. In no time a small crowd surrounded the two injured men and one person volunteered to ask them how they were doing and whether they needed some water.

From his well turned out attire, the good Samaritan appeared to be an educated middle-aged person hailing from a well-to-do family. The crowd watched as the concerned man went about asking them where they were hurt.

Just then a man in the crowd who had been watching the well-dressed man very carefully stepped forward and interrupted him. Slightly stunned, the Samaritan turned towards the man who asked: “Sir, what do you do?”

Taken aback by the man’s absurd query in the midst of the post-accident crisis management, the Samaritan asked: “Well, why do you want to know?” Pat came the reply, “Sir, do you want to buy a credit card?”

Manisha Jha

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