We know how powerful Money is. We often hear people saying 'Money cannot buy everything', but see people (sometimes even the same people) craving for money at the cost of humanity and several other precious things including relationships.

Here is the incident that has motivated me to write on this topic.

Last week, my grandmother was seriously ill and I called up a nearby doctor. He treated her and took Rs.200/- for the visit. The same day evening, when the writer was in the office, the grandfather walked all the way from home to the doctor's place as grandma's condition didn't improve much. The doctor, who usually has a very limited fan following, was having a casual chat with someone when my grandfather arrived. He requested the doc to visit again. The doc quietly refused saying that she would recover slowly and he knew how to treat.

When I reached home, he narrated the whole episode. I immediately went to the doctor, who was still having a bull session, and insisted that he accompany me. The doc then enlightened me on not visiting my grandma in the evening; we would have to pay him Rs.200/- again for the visit and wasn't sure whether we would pay him again.

I got furious after listening to his filthy explanation and told him that he should have visited just for the sake of the old man who had walked all the way (he has a scooter and my home is just ¼ KMs from his shop). I explicitly told him that money was not a problem but his attitude was.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If a small time doc is so particular about money, one can imagine the thinking of a corporate hospital. Agreed that corporate hospitals provide us the latest and costly equipment, but that doesn’t mean every patient, irrespective of his complaint, can be made a customer of the equipment (to contribute toward recovering the equipment cost).

People running businesses (today's hospitals are major business centers) should make profits but not at the cost of humanity and ethics.

The ending might be abrupt but I should stop here, else I might end up hammering this doc.