Happy Holi!!!

Many parts of India will celebrate the festivals of colour today, my present location kolkata included. Though at my native place agartala, holi will be observed tomorrow. Today we celebrate Dol (দোল), we apply colours over tulsi tree and at the foot of idols. In simple terms, today we dedicate colours to the devine and tomorrow we'll be smearing colours on the faces of our friends. So the people who are celebrating holi today, many many greetings for them. Stay safe, play safe. Check the website to know more about precations to be maintained while playing holi here.

What the Callous!

A common man from Tripura may not know about many medical institutes, but he must know the name of Apollo Hospital. Apollo Hospital are of two types, one found in Chennai and another found in kolkata. The better one is in Chennai, but in Kolkata we have an Apollo Hospital that is good enough, but costly. In Apollo hospitals, doctors are actually Gods, every thing is good there. This is the perception, people from Tripura have about Apollo hospitals.

I never got a chance to visit Apollo hospital chennai ever. So, when I got a chance to visit Apollo Kolkata, I just grabbed the opportunity (lol, I went there to accompany my mom and aunt to senior doctors). So the procedure was really cool. you go there, reception desk would refer you to doctors chamber, attendant  there would refer you to cash section. The suited booted staff on cash will charge you the amount and refer you to a nurse who will take your vitals and then allow you to go to the consultation chambers of doctors.

The other things went of smoothly, but vital monitoring part came as a big shock. The young nurse there put the BP cuff around the arm of my aunt, kept her finger on wrist and started inflating the cuff. It is called palpatory method of Blood Pressure measurement, you can measure only systolic BP (the numerator) in this way. At the end of measurement, I thought they would write the Systolic BP only, but to my utter surprise she wrote both systolic and diastolic BP(the numerator & denominator both).

I approached the nurse and asked her how she could comment on Diastolic BP as it can't be measured in palpatory method. With a puzzled look on her face, she told "It must be normal! that's why I wrote normal values."

I was like WTF! How could staff of such a reputed medical institute like Apollo kolkata could be so callus! Vitals are most important for diagnosis of a disease or conditions. If the vitals are measured like this, how can we expect the doctors to make the diagnosis and treatment correctly?

The perception that the doctors in Apollo hospitals are so good, no doubt about it. But if other staff do such blunders, how could we expect good services here! Here my intention is neither to blacken the image of Apollo hospital nor to do negative publicity. I would just like to have the attention of Apollo hospital people. Come on guys, you have created the brand equity with much difficulties, why ruin it like this. I don't personally have problem with doctors or their attitude but how could we expect your doctors to perform when they are not fed with right info?

PS. I have a suggestion for you Apollo people, why not equip nurses with electronic BP monitor.

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Offf Flipcart..

In India, online shopping is synonymous to Flipcart. With 44% of market share, flipcart is undisputed leader on the board. Second place is occupied by Snapdeal with 32% and amazon is on third position with 15% market share. Report says that flipcart is not yet making any profits yet as they are more concerned about expanding their business. It's probably first time in modern India, a "Make in India" company is kicking the ass.

Market share of major e-retailers. Image curtsy: Business Standard

All these stuff made me very happy once. As I live in the North east where most companies don't establish their show rooms as this is not profitable for them, could get my hands on hands on latest tech by ordering them online. First few days were euphoric. Every thing was delivered and every damn thing was good. I remember prebooking and buying Revolution 2020 from flipcart. There were shops who used to order LCD TVs (they were in fashion then) and resale them for some profit.

But as the time passed, flipcart started curtailing products that were delivered in north east (and some areas in UP, Bihar too). The share of not-shippable products increased with time, at  some point even less than 20% products of 15Mn strong inventory of flipcart became not-shippable.

I remember, Motorola unvailed their flagship phone Moto E, G and X just after it was taken over by google. It was only available on flipcart. That time flipcart had a policy of not delivering products costing more than 10,000 rupee in north east. I was not able to procure the Moto G phone I wanted badly, rather I need to settle with a Micromax HD mobile.


Things have moved a bit forward in last few days, Flipcart increased the quantum of products shippable to North-East. I heard this info from my friends. So when I had to buy a pair of shoes few days back, I went streight to the play store and downloaded the flipcart app (flipcart is not accecible from mobile without app). I went to the shoes section and after say half an hour of scanning, I sattled on a pair of shoes and went on to order that. As I entered my pin code, BANG! It was not available! The second choice, not available. Third, forth nopz.. not available.

This is when I tried to buy Moto X today.

With a broken heart, I just casually copied the product name and searched it on snap deal, the product was there. I entered the PIN code. Yes, it was available. Ordered it from snapdeal and recived the curier after around 10 days. It was available after just 7days, but due to neglect on part of bluedart the delivery was delayed. At Amazone too, the product was available and was shippable.

I am not advocating for any perticular brand here, I am just putting forward the plight of people from Agartala and the North-East. We too have the same right as the people from main land of India to shop products online and get good deals. If flipcart is not willing to do so, let them declare this openly that they wont deliver to North-East. We have other online retailers to choose from. It's a request to my readers, kindly put pressure on flipcart authorities..

Apologies and renaming.

The blog I am writing today is intended to serve two different purposes. First, it emphasizes on my ever growing laziness and second the change of name and web address of the blog.

If someone has visited this website more than once (please ignore, these are imaginary people I am talking about) you must have already noticed, this is the worst kept and most irregularly updated blog on the web (Gosh! still 607 page views, 600 among them must have been suicide goals). Whatever, today, I would like to make a pledge (which may get broken any time) that I would update this blog at least once every fortnight.

The second announcement is about change of blog address and blog name. As some of you must have known that broad gauge rail line is already operational till my home city of Agartala. I am expecting to see an express train ferrying people directly from Agartala to Kolkata in less than a month. To make the moment memorable, I have decided to change the name and web address of this blog post as Agartala Express which I suppose would be the name of first train leaving Agartala station. So my request to the beloved reader is that if you by mistake bookmarked this page, kindly change the web address to agartalaexpress.blogspot.com. Thank you. Please keep visiting.

Agartala train station built with design clues from Ujjayanta Palace, the royal palace of Tripura. Image Source: Internet.

NGO’s : changing the world around

4th March evening, i used to be enjoying my hot cup of tea with kurkure whereas serious cyclone was busy destroying the electricity supply and uprooting trees outside, suddenly my mobile beeped. it had been a whatsapp from Raunak, one of my best friends and fellow intern. He conveyed the message from Swati ma'am (our ma'am from community medicine dept.) that a health camp will be there the next day targeted toward senior citizen and that we might be joining her. Primarily I had a bit of dilemma whether or not to hitch the camp wasting a valuable Sunday or not. Raunak shared the message in our intern’s whatsapp group too. Our friends Reea, Rebika, Rimi promptly agreed to join. Their enthusiasm took me under its ambit and I decided to go. That evening we can’t plan more as cyclone virtually desolated mobile networks.

                Next morning Raunak informed me that He won’t be able to be a part of us because of some unavoidable circumstance. He also gave me the mobile no. of Swati ma'am so that I could communicate with her relating to the camp. I talked with her and told her that we four folks will join her. She was terribly happy that so many interns were joining her, however on the other hand, she was worried if we might slot in vehicle she had arranged. I told her we are going to manage anyhow, we are unwilling to leave any of our friends behind. She also told me that we were reaching to Kali krishna para for a health camp organized by an NGO named KP memorial welfare society.

Ma'am with local Panchayat chief.

                It was 10, ma'am rang me and asked to join her, she was ready. Within five minutes we were prepared and going. Four folks on a seat meant to accommodate three, but we didn't even acknowledge it, as we were deeply immersed in our talks, leg pull etc. As we neared the destination, the sky cloud density multiplied. As we crossed Bishalgarh central jail, landscape started changing dramatically. Lush tea leaf plantation was a pleasure for eyes and then, out of nowhere broad-gauge road connecting Agartala to southern part of the state emerged. we all began to imagine, how lovely the scene will be once we’ll travel in train through this greenery. Every good thing must finish, our journey too terminated close to a community hall at kali krishna para, the venue for today’s health camp.

Initial geathering at camp

                Out of car as we stretched, some folks started arranging the hall for smooth running of the camp. 5 tables were set up 1 dedicated to registration, 1 for pressure measurement, 2 for doctors, 1 for drugs distribution. Registration table was occupied by a non-medical employees. me and my friends occupied tables meant for doctors and blood pressure measurement, ma'am hold the drugs distribution table. And a long consultation process started.

Me and Rebika surrounded by patients.

Reea and Sanjayda busy prescribing..

             

Rimi doing it alone.

   1st i assumed patient load won\'t be that great as I didn't have the thought however massive area the camp was going to cover. initially when I started the registered patient no. was 35. As we completed, virtually a hundred senior citizens availed our services. we all tried to treat them exploitation our greatest skills. Patients we couldn't diagnose were treated by ma'am and a few patient, specially the one’s having eye or ear disorders were short-listed to be treated later by specialist doctors. Free medicines too were distributed among the patients who required them. Hot tea was served as the camp neared finish. On demand we measured BP of some ASHA staff too. 

Selfie time.

                At the end of the camp we did some photo shoot taking a small pond in the background. 10-20 minutes later we headed back to Agartala following same scenic road. This time, rain accompanied  us making the road even more beautiful. As we neared the college, car stopped at nirmala, a renowned food joint. Ma'am organized lunch for us, taking my lunch packets, I returned my home. Power cut was still there, as I entered home, thunderstorm started.