We have all seen humans rushing to hospitals during emergencies. Looks like animals are following suit. After having seen a langur visiting a hospital in Karnataka in a viral video in 2020, and an injured deer rushing to a hospital in the US last year, watching a monkey mother and child visiting a doctor’s clinic in Bihar shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The Doctor in the limelight, thanks to the trending video from Bihar, says that he was shell shocked to see the Monkey mother-child duo turn up at his chamber for treatment. In the video, one can clearly see the monkey mom holding her baby and waiting patiently as the Doctor examines them. As the doctor uses torchlight to inspect the animals, they oblige.
A bystander seems to be making small talk with the mother monkey as the doctor is administering treatment. Later the mother and baby are seen resting on the hospital bed as the onlookers are bedazzled by the rare sight.
According to Dr SM Ahmed a private practitioner at Rohtas, Bihar the primates arrived at his clinic around noon on Tuesday. He motioned the mother monkey to get seated on the stool which she complied to. They presented with wounds on the head and legs after having suffered a fall from somewhere.
The video shows a huge crowd outside the clinic as people flock together with mobile cameras to capture the bizarre sight. The doctor is seen requesting the crowd to make way for the monkeys to leave.
Dr Munish Kumar Raizada, a neonatologist practising in the USA says a similar incident occurred during his PG residency years at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Delhi. A lady presented with her pet pup to the Emergency Department at DDU, past midnight, from where she was directed to the Pediatric Ward. Dr Raizada and his fellow residents were amused by the lady bringing her pup and even more astounded by the people in the emergency department who had directed her to the Pediatric ward.
The lady stated the lack of veterinary clinics and hospitals functioning round the clock, as her reason for bringing her pet to a hospital for humans. Dr Raizada recalls that they administered gastric lavage and a cocktail of gentamycin, lasix and dexamthasone injections to the puppy in distress, based on their common sense and medical reasoning.
As people on social media are all praise for the monkey mom’s emotional maturity in bringing her baby to get treated at a clinic, let us not forget the real message. In a country struggling with the existing healthcare workforce, we need to ensure that animals too get access to healthcare. While getting more trained veterinary professionals is a solution, Doctors of all sorts better be prepared to treat every patient regardless of race, creed or species.
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