I Do Not Come to You by Chance - By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page 0,30
now and we’ll bring the money by morning.’
She almost laughed.
‘Madam,’ I begged, ‘please, first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll bring the money.’
She folded her arms and looked back at me. I wondered if the feminine of brute was brutess.
‘Nurse, please . . .’
She patted a pile of forms on all four sides until every single sheet was perfectly aligned. We pleaded and beseeched. She strolled to the other end of her work space and started attending to other matters. We beckoned my mother. Reluctantly, she left her husband’s side and leaned on the counter.
‘Please, my daughter,’ she said in a mournful, motherly voice. ‘My husband is very ill and we need to get him some medical attention as soon as possible. As my son was telling you, by tomorrow, we’ll bring the money. I can’t lie to you.’
Pity clouded the nurse’s face.
‘Madam . . .’
‘Please . . . please,’ my mother begged, shedding some tears for emphasis.
‘Madam, please. It’s not as if the doctors and nurses here are heartless. We’ve just learnt to be realistic that’s all.’
She explained that after a patient was admitted, it became almost impossible to discontinue treatment if it turned out that the patient could not pay. The doctors and nurses were now tired of contributing from their own pockets towards the welfare of strange patients.
We rushed back to my father’s side and held a quick consultation. My father did not conceal an emergency stash inside his mattress. All the banks were closed. There was nobody we knew in Umuahia who could afford to loan cash readily.
‘What do we do now?’ my mother asked. Her face was drenched with worry.
We carried my father back to the car and went searching. The Ndukaego Hospital told us that they were very sorry. The King George Hospital promised us that we were wasting our time. The Saints of Mount Calvary Hospital assured us that there was nothing they could do under the current circumstances. My mother lost her mind.
‘Hewu! God, please help me! My husband is dying o! My husband is dying!’
‘Mummy, please.’ For the billionth time, I confirmed that my father still had a pulse. ‘Mummy, please calm down.’
She continued babbling to God.
‘Let’s try another hospital,’ I said to Mr Nwude.
A light bulb flashed above his head.
‘My wife’s brother has an in-law whose aunty’s husband is a senior consultant in the Government Hospital,’ Mr Nwude said. ‘Maybe we can go and ask if they can help.’
We sped to the wife’s brother’s house. He gave us directions to the in-law’s house. At the in-law’s house, my mother flung herself against the floor and uttered a cry that shook the louvers. The in-law got dressed and accompanied us to the aunty’s house. At times like this, I had no grudges at all about Umuahia being such a pocket-sized town.
After assuring us that the hospital would have no qualms about shoving my father out the next day if we did not produce the cash, Senior Consultant Uncle gave us a signed note addressed to the hospital emergency ward. We sped back to the Government Hospital, flung the note across the desk to the nurse, and got my father attended to pronto. Thank God for ‘long-leg’.
‘He’s had a stroke,’ the doctor declared.
He said that my father’s blood pressure was too high, that he was in a coma. He could not give any definite prognosis, but gave instructions for my father to be admitted.
The hospital lift was not working, so I and Mr Nwude carried my father up via the staircase to the medical ward on the third floor. After every few steps, we would lean on the wall and pant before continuing.
At the ward, some junior nurses took my father from us, while a militant senior informed us that we could not go in. Visiting time was over.
‘You can sleep in the car park if you want to spend the night,’ she insisted. ‘This is not a hotel.’
Mr Nwude dashed back downstairs, retrieved the senior consultant’s note from the nurse at reception, and brought it to the ward. The militant nurse changed her mind.
‘You can spend the night, but it would have to be a private room.’
A more expensive alternative, but we did not mind.
My father’s room reeked of disinfectant. The walls were stained, the bed frame was rusty, and the lumpy mattress had a broad depression right in the middle. There was neither bedsheet nor pillow.
‘You’re supposed to bring you own bedding,’ the nurse chastised.