A spectacle at the Eye Doctor

I told you yesterday that I now take German classes in Delhi. I have already had three Sundays with classes at the Goethe Institute and I soon noticed something that concerned me: in order to read the blackboard properly, I had to squint my eyes a bit. That became quite straining in the course of several hours and I knew that I had to go to an eye specialist the next day to check my eyes and get glasses made. I did – but I had an experience at the practice which I want to tell you about.

I went to the doctor who had done my grandmother’s cataract surgery and where Ramona, too, had had her eyes checked. She had a look and told me that I would need glasses, something that I had already expected. She then asked me to lie down on the stretcher at the side of the room. While she went on to treat another patient, I lay down and her assistant came to me. He had a small bottle with eye drops in the hand and placed two drops into each of my eyes with quick, experienced movements. The next moment, my eyes started burning like crazy!

The man asked me ‘Can you open your eyes?’ and I denied, waiting for the pain to subside and thinking that he should have really warn a patient before putting something like this into someone’s eyes! He asked me to sit up and after one or two minutes, my eyes felt better and I was able to open my eyes again. The assistant asked me to lie down again. At this point I had already decided that before leaving I would suggest them nicely and politely to talk more to their patients and inform them about what they were going to do to their eyes.

Anyway, lying on the stretcher, I looked up and saw how the assistant approached my eye with a needle of some kind, obviously ready to poke it in my eye! That was the last straw. I sat up immediately and expressed all what I had planned to say later – but obviously not anymore as calmly as I had initially planned to. I shouted out: What are you doing? You have not told me one word about what is going to happen, first you drop something into my eyes that makes them burn so much that I cannot open my eyes anymore and then you come with that needle without telling me if you are planning to slice my eye open or what! This is not how you treat a patient! You are a doctor, you have a stethoscope hanging around your neck, you have the responsibility for your patients and their comfort! You did exactly the opposite – you made me want to run away! I tried to keep my patience and if you had said just one single word of explanation, it would have been a different story!

I had stood up during my tirade and the doctor had hurried over to see what the matter was. I have to say she really did a good job in saving the situation. They both listened and apologized. I told them that I had done check-ups in different parts of the world and knew how the relation between patient and doctor should be! The doctor agreed that this is how it should be and told her assistant that this was a big lesson for him!

She finally explained me what he had been doing. The drops had been a small local anesthesia which was needed to check the pressure around or in my eyeballs, a procedure which was routine with patients above a certain age. The actual check would be done with the needle thing I had seen. I told her that I had no objection at all to having my eye pressure checked but that I should have been told what was going on.

I told the doctor and her assistant very clearly what I thought of this. I mentioned that she was our family’s trusted doctor but needed to take better care that her assistants treat her patients as people and not like bulk goods on a conveyor belt, one after the other, poking them and burning their eyes without telling them what was going on! I could see the regret in her eyes. I don’t know if the next patient will be informed – but I hope they learned something.

Well, I had what I had needed and was out of there quite quickly, on the way to the next optician to order my glasses. Sometimes a simple event turns out to be so exciting – but I enjoy the result. I can see clear again now with my glasses on and will be able to copy my German lessons from the blackboard.