In an effort to relieve the pains my father suffers from, I decided to try gamma knife treatment on him in 117 Hospital of the PLA. It is extremely difficult nowadays for us to get into Hangzhou. Without the bullet trains, we can only turn to the bus service, which means we have to change buses at least twice. I took him to the hospital on Sunday so that we could have enough time on Monday to do all sorts of tests before the operation. After making all the necessary arrangements, I had to leave my dad at the hospital with my sister, for some school things had to be taken care of.

It was already 9:30 am when I was able to go to the local bus station. Very quickly I jumped on a coach to Jiubao, then changed to a bus to Wanglongtong, and changed again to another bus to the hospital. Altogether it took me more than three and a half hours!

When I got to the ward, my sister said all the tests were done except the CT. I was surprised, for the CT is the most important one, without which how could gamma knife doctors do the operation? When asked why, my sister said there were many people waiting to do the CT, and that the doctors there told them to come again that afternoon. “Afternoon? Have you had your lunch yet?” “Dad hasn’t, for he is not supposed to have any food before taking the CT.” “What? How ridiculous! How could they let an old sick man go hungry?

Confused, I went to see the doctor in charge of the case. However, she was just nowhere to be found. When I asked the nurses, they replied my dad was absent when they tried to have the skin test done. Hearing this, my sister blurted out, “Wasn’t it you nurses who asked us to go early to have the tests done?” Seeing this, another doctor said he could have a little food if he was really hungry. Really hungry? Who would not be hungry after 19 hours’ starvation?

We waited and waited. At exactly 2 o’clock, the CT doctor finally came. I asked him if he could possibly have my dad’s CT taken first or as early as possible, for my dad had not had any lunch up to then. “Other patients haven’t had any lunch, either. If I advanced you to an earlier time, they would complain.” replied he coldly without looking up. I was completely speechless. Given no other choice, we had to continue waiting outside. When my dad came out the CT room, it was already 3:30! That is, my dad was forced to go hungry for as long as 22 hours! What an absurd incident!

It is absolutely right that we need to cooperate with doctors. It is understandable that for some tests we have to go with an empty stomach. However, I’ve never heard such a thing as you have to skip two meals for whatever tests! If the patient is still young and basically healthy, I might not complain. But this happened to an old very sick person. Whatever reasons they might give, I will never buy them. It involves the basic human rights and the basic respect that anyone should have for another human being. Isn’t it just inhumane to treat an old sick man that way? What’s wrong with you, 117 Hospital? We had naively believed PLA hospitals would be more patients friendly and we would receive better service. However, facts told us we were wrong. You let us down.