A Humbling Week, Part One

Prof. Madder is delighted to report that his dear wife Annie was discharged from the Sarawak General Hospital this evening, after a two night stay. Oh and by the way, she had had a mastectomy....

Annie was admitted on Tuesday morning and it was a cold, rainy morning (yes, it does get relatively cold in the tropics!!). Mornings like this don't exactly instill a positive mindset for any activity, least of all going into hospital for a cancer operation.

But we soldiers supported our queen through the hospital admissions procedures, through the labyrinthine and crowded hospital complex to the Female Surgical Ward on level 3 of the main building. On arrival, Annie was given a load of paperwork to complete, and a set of hospital greens to change into. Furthermore, as the place was overcrowded, she had to spend the first night of her stay in a temporary bed in the corridor! OK for her, but rather cramped for her retinue of visitors!

The hospital was as clean as it was possible to make such an old place as this, and the equipment in the ward was quite up to date. A lot of people in Malaysia say disparaging things about Government hospitals, sneering that they are not as modern as the spanking new (hideously expensive) private hospitals such as the Normah and Timberland with their private wards and high-tech beeping hospital equipment.

But what these people don't realise is that in many cases, the Government hospital and the private hospital share the same surgeons. This is especially the case with cancer specialisations. And the Government hospital, at least the Sarawak General, is perfectly safe, clean and comfortable - if a little overcrowded. It is also a highly respected cancer hospital in Malaysia, where a lot of cancer research work is carried out. So you actually get better value for money (which isn't an issue anyway because we work for the Government).

And, the Sarawak General Hospital is a great place to visit if, like Prof. Madder, you are a keen observer of life. And life there is. As well as the other patients, all ladies of many different ages with all kinds of serious complaints, there are the visitors. One particular visitor sticks in my memory vividly - let us call him Pak Tongkat Ali.

For the non-Malaysianists among you, Tongkat Ali is the name of a ginseng-like root taken in a drink by Malay men for the purpose of, ahem, enhancing their libido. One of the newspaper advertisements for Tongkat Ali coffee consists of a picture of a broken bed, with no wording required. Nudge-nudge, wink wink, say no more!!

For the less dirty-minded of us, Tongkat also means walking stick. And Pak is a generic title often given to elderly Malay men as a mark of respect.

Now, Pak Tongkat Ali was an elderly Malay gentleman alright, but he had a bushy Hagrid-like beard, spiky hair and a big thick walking stick like something they sell in craft shops. He was always stumping around the ward on his stick, regaling everyone, especially me, with friendly but slightly incoherent chatter. He had a somewhat Tolkienesque aspect to him, with a bit of Santa Claus thrown in. A laughing gnome with a huge, drooping belt pouch which looked like it might carry magic charms but probably carried money and a day's supply of Tongkat Ali.

Basically, the old man was harmless, but on the verge of being a little bit irritating at times, as we will see later. His wife was in for major surgery on her stomach and kidneys, and she went into the operation room together with Annie.

As well as Pak Tongkat Ali, I have to make some comments about the doctors. THEY WERE NO MORE THAN KIDS!!! Maybe it's because I'm getting old but come on - I swear blind that the doctors who came on their ward rounds were on average no older than 16! They looked like undergraduates with stethoscopes poking out of their pockets! But they all had the title 'Dr.' on their name tags in front of their names and seemed to know what they were doing.

Maybe it was my over-inflated ego, but the doctorlings seemed to show me some respect too - probably because they knew that I also had a doctor title, but I must have forgotten to tell them whether or not I was a medical doctor!

Fortunately, they didn't ask me to assist them with a cardiac arrest. That would have been a bit of a hoot - imagine them crying desperately: "Please, we need you to help us perform a defibrillation on this patient, Doctor" and me replying, "sorry, can't help you there, but I can produce an accurate phonetic transcription of his death agonies!"

Getting tired now. Part Two coming soon.....