THE DYING DOCTOR - by DEJI ATOYEBI

...with an expression of assurance renting his face, he said to himself ......... "my patients have no choice but to stick to my services".

Ofcourse he was the doctor of all doctors! A man whose valor was not worth a penny and his knowledge of surgical operations were from borrowed brains. He was the head doctor who let his nurses take the driver's seat and become dictators over him. One could easily say there was a switch in medical power.

His hospital was alot to write home about. It comprised a bevy of patients who thought they had had enough of other unruly doctors. "He is the most competent, having a PhD to wrap it up" , so they thought. They never thought of checking his past records so as to see his performance in lower clinics. Love was indeed blind, and sympathy is spontaneously stimulated especially when the recipient had no shoes.

He started on a bright note, taking over from the main doctor when the latter went to the great beyond. Things started falling apart when he couldn't protect the lives of his own patients. An army of masked men would come to kill them in broad day light. It was indeed an irony; a refuge for salvation turning to a den of destruction and death. However, only the patients in a particular section of the hospital were always attacked. The other patients in the safe section took the issue with detachment. They did not give a hoot as long as their bed space was intact.

The activities of the nurses in the hospital were so grave that it made the doctor seem like a saint. They would break into the hospital treasury and get out with stacks of money, only for the doctor to sack the accountant when he went about telling the patients of some missing money.

" the patients were sick and hungry, what is their business with some stolen money? It is the hospital's not theirs" -so he thought.
Despite the killings in his hospital and more than a handful of newborn babies abducted under his watch, the 'safe' section of his hospital still had some trust in him. They were so blinded by love, that they did not question the fact that his wife was sick but he had no panacea for her malady. Yet he was a doctor! Eventually, some part of the safe section of his hospital lost trust in him completely. The worst happened when the doctor became weak and stiff. He was literally dying. It was time for a new doctor to be employed in the hospital by the way. But unfortunately,the scenario was a tough nut to crack. Some patients wanted him to stay. They would enthuse ,"he is the only man that can save us!". The other section would say, "we need a new doctor.....we are dying in the present one's hands".

It is just a week left. The doctor seems to be in the in the middle of life and death. His nurses are unrepentant and his wife's dementia is full fledged, in fact, she was just some months away from running around naked. The essence of a hospital was virtually watered down. What was the use of a dying doctor? What trust should people have on a doctor who cannot treat himself and household? Perhaps, it would be safer to say his patients should cure him by relieving him of his duties. How could a blind man be chosen to show the way? The hospital was running mad! Should the patients give him a second chance or should they say bye bye to him?

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