"In the Hot Zone"
Accident and emergency, wide entrance with automatic sliding glass doors, ambulances lined up outside, paramedics wheeling in patients on trollies, one child is positive with COVID-19, a child is screaming in the corridors, doctors come running. They talk to the first nurse, give care card number, get a wrist band, wait for the triage nurse, an hour goes by, ambulances keep arriving, more emergency cases, one woman is short of breath and gasping, another hour goes by, still not seen triage, guess I'm low priority, someone says they've been waiting five hours, more ambulances come in, someone throws up, a panic stricken woman comes in carrying a toddler, she pushes in the queue to see the first nurse, child slumped in her arms
"To all the frontliners, we're on the Hot Zone. We need to put our hearts to save these people even it means risking our own lives." One of the staffs' said
Nowhere is the chronic underfunding more evident than in the hallways. They are for the most part crammed with patients on trolleys, some tended by strained relatives and some alone. Each of them lies on their back, strapped in- eyes toward the naked fluorescent tubes that flicker as though they are on their last legs. In the brief gaps between these unfortunates who cannot afford the exorbitant private fees, the pale blue walls are deeply scored by the metal framed trollies, the drywall showing though like white scars. The cheap prints on the walls are insipid, so lacking in vibrancy that they appear sun-bleached in this windowless strip. The confined space magnifies the groans and wails to no avail, the nurses have seen it all before and are immune, hardened by repeat exposure and over-work
A doctor entered the hospital in hurry after being called in for an urgent surgery. He answered the call asap, changed his clothes and went directly to the surgery block. He found the boy’s father pacing in the hall waiting for the doctor
The hallway has as much personality as the rest of the hospital. The floor is slate grey and the walls dove. Above the ceiling is made from those polystyrene squares laid on a grid-like frame. The light is too bright for my eyes after the darkening gloom outside, I find it abrasive, enough perhaps to bring on one of my migraines. There are commercial prints on the wall, tasteful in the dull kind of way. This place certainly isn't run by risk-takers and I guess I should find comfort in that. Above every door I pass is a large plastic sign, dark with white lettering– no fancy fonts, just bold and all-caps. It's so new and spotless I feel like the whole building must have just gotten beamed here from some-place dirt is outlawed. My eyes fall to the garish flowers in my hand, their dampness seeping through my woollen glove. Suddenly they don't mind their cost anymore, it's worth it
The doctor finally reach the door, brown and dull like all the others, but I can already see people inside. "Well, here we are," the nurse smiles kindly and opens the door wider. Doctors and nurses surrounded his hospital bed, attaching IV's, heart monitors and oxygen tanks to him. He decided to explore the room while the other people are still crowded around him. An old TV set hangs from the ceiling. A window giving him a view of the world below was just beneath the screen. In the corner are two chairs, frayed with wear and tear. It was a typical hospital room, sparse and functional.
On seeing him, the father yelled, “Why did you take all this time to come? Don’t you know that my son’s life is in danger? My son is positive to COVID-19, Don’t you have any sense of responsibility?”
Red in the face, face the color of an over-ripe tomato, red as a brick, eyes squinting meanly, developed a tic, eyes looked like they might pop out, fists clenched, hard staring eyes, slammed fist down onto the table, voice with hard edge, shouting venomously, stomping feet, slamming doors, curt voice, clipped tones, stoney silence, stormed off, spitting with fury, torrent of rage, tiny bubbles of froth forming at the corners of the mouth, face contorted with the venomous outburst, brewing anger like tea in a pot or like a storm out at sea, anger boiling up inside
