A very quiet area, where only a few parked cars are the visible statements that people are around somewhere. The traffic on the road is prolific of course. And then I enter the Bombay City Eye Institute, and step into a very busy setup.
Luckily I have visited during the 'economy' time, so I will pay a subsidized fee, for my check up. Everybody looks calm and relaxed. Patients of all age groups are sitting on the seating along the walls, tiny cabins have neat eye checkup machines, doctors donning a white coat are attending to individual patients in each of the small cubicles, and helpers in blue uniform are calling out names of persons who have to follow them to a particular point, for a particular checkup.
I register myself. Looking for an unoccupied seat, I walk around and note the labels on the cubicles. There are eight rooms , then four more in a long corridor and the corridor parallel is the operation area, where footwear has been removed before entering. Optometry, sonography, retina and uvea, perimetry and YAG laser, cornea and contact lenses, lensex OT, lasik OT, etc are the labels I noted down while waiting for my turn to be checked up. All along the walls and the narrow corridors, seating has been provided, on which there were almost fifty persons in the various benches and chairs provided. As a patient was called to any of the checkup cubicles, any standing person would quickly sit on the unoccupied place. This 'musical chairs' game amused me and I too had to participate in it.
As I waited on a chair near a cubicle, I could hear the doctor's interaction with the patient. 'How much time do you spend on the PC?' seemed to be the first question for every patient that entered. But if she would ask 'How much time do you spend on the mobile screen?' it would elicit a more popular response. Anyway, I involuntarily became privy to the conversation as I waited. The person worked on the PC from ten a.m. to seven p.m. The advice was 'Blink more often, do not stare at the PC for more than an hour, focus onto something at a different distance for two minutes'. Advice that I too am grateful for.
Mine was a routine checkup advised by my diabetologist. As I was called into the different cubicles, to check the lens, my spectacles, eye pressure, vision, the cornea, the retina, etc, the common instructions were 'please put your chin on the support and rest your forehead onto the band'. The reading room where the lenses are checked onto each person's eyes for near and far sightedness, had a screen which showed the alphabet as inverted mirror images, which were reflected onto a facing mirror, to be read. I was enlightened about this, that this creates twice the distance between the patient and the image display, as the tiny cubicles do not have the length needed for correct diagnosis. So now I am a bit wiser for having asked the reason for the mirrors.
Between tests, I had to walk around to find the unoccupied chair in the musical chairs' game, and I noted the displays about 'blade and bladeless cataract surgery', the Hermann Grid by Ludimar Hermann that displayed lateral inhibition in 1870, and another display titled 'turning the tables' illusion by Roger Shepard that displayed 'spatial relations'. I found that information very interesting.
One family with two girls, approximately seven and ten, were discussing how the school teacher would now have to give them the front bench, all the better to see the blackboard with, after the opthalmologist's opinion and diagnosis. One mother has brought a very small six month old baby for a checkup. Another middle aged couple, where the husband was the patient, and had bandages on both his feet, intrigued my curiosity, and while playing the musical chairs game, we exchanged smiles and I ventured to ask how he had injured his feet. Being a diabetic, the nerves in the legs had to be stimulated with a warm water soak daily, and by default, he soaked his feet into just boiled water, without realizing, until the damage was done.
It is not easy to share intimate stories with strangers, and I am grateful to anyone who enlightens me about their personal experiences, so that I can be aware and better informed of such dangers.
As I am guided to the outgoing desk to collect my report, I spot two boards on the wall of the hospital. One has a list of 'donors' and the other, of 'advisories', and I recognised only the last name, that of Shiamak Davar. The least likely person that I would have expected to find in the Bombay Eye Institute and Research Centre.
Luckily I have visited during the 'economy' time, so I will pay a subsidized fee, for my check up. Everybody looks calm and relaxed. Patients of all age groups are sitting on the seating along the walls, tiny cabins have neat eye checkup machines, doctors donning a white coat are attending to individual patients in each of the small cubicles, and helpers in blue uniform are calling out names of persons who have to follow them to a particular point, for a particular checkup.
I register myself. Looking for an unoccupied seat, I walk around and note the labels on the cubicles. There are eight rooms , then four more in a long corridor and the corridor parallel is the operation area, where footwear has been removed before entering. Optometry, sonography, retina and uvea, perimetry and YAG laser, cornea and contact lenses, lensex OT, lasik OT, etc are the labels I noted down while waiting for my turn to be checked up. All along the walls and the narrow corridors, seating has been provided, on which there were almost fifty persons in the various benches and chairs provided. As a patient was called to any of the checkup cubicles, any standing person would quickly sit on the unoccupied place. This 'musical chairs' game amused me and I too had to participate in it.
As I waited on a chair near a cubicle, I could hear the doctor's interaction with the patient. 'How much time do you spend on the PC?' seemed to be the first question for every patient that entered. But if she would ask 'How much time do you spend on the mobile screen?' it would elicit a more popular response. Anyway, I involuntarily became privy to the conversation as I waited. The person worked on the PC from ten a.m. to seven p.m. The advice was 'Blink more often, do not stare at the PC for more than an hour, focus onto something at a different distance for two minutes'. Advice that I too am grateful for.
Mine was a routine checkup advised by my diabetologist. As I was called into the different cubicles, to check the lens, my spectacles, eye pressure, vision, the cornea, the retina, etc, the common instructions were 'please put your chin on the support and rest your forehead onto the band'. The reading room where the lenses are checked onto each person's eyes for near and far sightedness, had a screen which showed the alphabet as inverted mirror images, which were reflected onto a facing mirror, to be read. I was enlightened about this, that this creates twice the distance between the patient and the image display, as the tiny cubicles do not have the length needed for correct diagnosis. So now I am a bit wiser for having asked the reason for the mirrors.
Between tests, I had to walk around to find the unoccupied chair in the musical chairs' game, and I noted the displays about 'blade and bladeless cataract surgery', the Hermann Grid by Ludimar Hermann that displayed lateral inhibition in 1870, and another display titled 'turning the tables' illusion by Roger Shepard that displayed 'spatial relations'. I found that information very interesting.
One family with two girls, approximately seven and ten, were discussing how the school teacher would now have to give them the front bench, all the better to see the blackboard with, after the opthalmologist's opinion and diagnosis. One mother has brought a very small six month old baby for a checkup. Another middle aged couple, where the husband was the patient, and had bandages on both his feet, intrigued my curiosity, and while playing the musical chairs game, we exchanged smiles and I ventured to ask how he had injured his feet. Being a diabetic, the nerves in the legs had to be stimulated with a warm water soak daily, and by default, he soaked his feet into just boiled water, without realizing, until the damage was done.
It is not easy to share intimate stories with strangers, and I am grateful to anyone who enlightens me about their personal experiences, so that I can be aware and better informed of such dangers.
As I am guided to the outgoing desk to collect my report, I spot two boards on the wall of the hospital. One has a list of 'donors' and the other, of 'advisories', and I recognised only the last name, that of Shiamak Davar. The least likely person that I would have expected to find in the Bombay Eye Institute and Research Centre.
No comments:
Post a Comment