Evolution of Love 2

Losing a mobile, completing a task

This was a crucial day in my life, my father an ex-serviceman and admitted in an emergency state is a multispeciality hospital suspected with brain fever. My father had an echs card ( health insurance card issued to ex-servicemen once they retire from active duty). He is frail with arthritis and glaucoma of eyes with dementia a 79 years old and now admitted 3 days ago with high fever and doctors are reluctant to start the treatment.

I was indeed worried as I was the culprit in his losing the echs card in the first place. This happened a year ago and due to troublesome documentation to get a replacement card, I delayed getting a duplicate card made. We deposited 2k dollars on day one and approached the army authorities for duplicate card proceedings, and a surprise awaited us, a critical document that was overlooked 20 years ago when the original card was made became mandatory and there was no way we could get a duplicate card. With desperation, we approached the head of echs card department, and he was a busy person gave us an appointment on the said date.

On this date, I had to make an appearance to the court as there was a case. The court started at 10 am and I had an appointment with army official at 12pm. The hospital had exhausted the 2k dollar limit and was demanding and additional 4k dollars or a temporary card with approval from echs clinic doctor for the empanelled hospital. My father was admitted in an empanelled hospital.

The challenge I faced was time management as the echs clinic, the hospital my father was admitted and head office of echs was in a distance of 5 miles to each other and the district court was 5 miles away from the hospital. The advocate representing my case was not paid for the previous appearance and today was one of the judgement days. As per the previous 15 hearings, the judge deliberates and gives a new date within a span of 10 mins, as our case by default remained the first case in his itinerary.

I reached the court on time and the judge came at 10 am and lo to my surprise the previous days hearing were pending. This rare event happened due to declaration of the holiday at the last moment and previous days case were all deliberated, now the people who missed out on the eve of holidays were not present at 10 am hence the proceedings were going at a rapid pace. There were 80 cases of previous days and following a sequential calling the whole process took 90 mins. My case and subsequent date for final settlement due to non-appearance of the complainant were announced and the advocate could feel that the presence will be a formality on the next hearing. My heart was beating fast as my brother was calling me, again and again, to reach head of echs card by 12 pm and the advocates insistence to clear his lumpsum due, they clashed and I showed the advocate my brothers repeated call and my need to be at a different location in a short passage of time fell in the deaf ears of the advocate and he grabbed my phone and went his way.

Now I was perplexed and in desperation took my drivers phone and called my brother about my commitment to reach the head of echs card department, and updated him with my new but temporary number. I told him to reschedule the appointment for 12.30 pm and I was able to reach at 12.30 pm. The official was warm and cooperative and immediately assigned an experienced and technical person to oversee my father submission of duplicate card. As the process was online and critical document was managed and he was able to submit the form successfully. My father's temporary card was made, now I had to rush to the clinic to get it attested by a doctor at the clinic and issued an admission approval form from the clinic by 2.30 pm.

The hospital administrator and billing team were in for a shock as they never expected the outcome. They finally accepted the documents by 5 pm and thus dropped the insistence for an additional security deposit. My father remained in best of hands for the next 5 days and bill crossed 4k dollars. Now temporary ECHS card was there to ensure my father gets the best of treatment.