Not my responsibility.

It was my last 30-hour shift before my one year of gruesome housemanship (what they term internship for doctors here) ended. That day on my way home, I nearly got beat up.

“I DON’T WANT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!” came the angry voice. “I’M NOT TAKING ANY RESPONSIBILITY!”

I was waiting for a taxi to go home. After 30 hours of work, I was dead beat. Then, a little commotion just ten feet away from me caught my eye. The voice belonged to a big, burly man in his fifties. He was a taxi driver.

Just before him, was a little old man, scrawny and fragile, sitting on a wheelchair, with a Filipino domestic helper by his side. She had opened the taxi door and pushed the little old man’s wheelchair close to the passenger seat but was unable to lift him onto the vehicle itself. She, too, was a little petite lady. Distress came upon her face like a dark cloud when she realized she could not accomplish the task before her.

“I’M NOT TAKING ANY RESPONSIBILITY! If I help you, and something happens, and he gets injured or something, I DON’T TO BE RESPONSIBLE! DON’T ASK ME TO HELP YOU!!” The taxi driver berated her in public.

I stood there, transfixed for a moment. Almost convinced by what the angry taxi driver had bellowed, I wonder if I might endanger the old man by trying to lift him onto the cab from the wheelchair too. I had little experience in transferring patients professionally, and seeing how he was frail and completely stiff from neck down, I was afraid of injuring him too.

The scene did not end there. Angry words spewed out from the taxi driver, and the Filipino maid became more and more distressed by the minute. The cabs piled up behind, and there was little space for manouvreing. It made it difficult for her to take another cab.

Finally, after 30 seconds which seemed more like an eternity, considering I had weighed so many pros and cons against each other, I went up to her aid. The security guard came as well, and the three of us, all inexperienced, tried to help. I had assumed the little old man was stroked out and non-communicative, but his sweet smile melted me immediately. Hello, I said. Hello, he replied.

“Have you done this before?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “A few times.”

That gave me confidence, and though we weren’t experienced, we managed to pile him onto the cab.

The angry taxi driver continued to berate the maid, shouting out how he didn’t want to take any responsibility and thus would not pitch in to help.

Anger welled up inside of me. One, against his disdain and disrespect for both the patient and the domestic helper (I am sure he would not have had the audacity to be so rude if her employer decked in Prada and Gucci were there). Two, against his utter rudeness. And three, against the sheer selfishness he displayed in the face of someone who badly needed his help.

I’m not sure why we did not choose a different cab, but it was likely because helping the maid and old man was less confrontational than telling the driver we would otherwise not take his awful cab. But by the time the little old man was in the seat, my frustration at the injustice of this all took over. The angry driver was about to slam his seat door when I made a deliberate effort to walk over and said to him, “ I work here at the hospital. I just want to tell you that I think this patient and his maid will need your help when they alight. And it’s not too difficult to lend them a helping hand.”

He got out, started gesticulating and yelled right into my face, “Hey, if you’re so concerned for them and want to help, THEN YOU CAN GET IN HERE AND GO HOME WITH THEM! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM! I’M NOT TAKING RESPSONSIBILITY IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG” He repeated that over and over, with more gusto each time.

I was angry. Angry at his attitude towards them, angry at his self-preservation to the point of nauseation, angry that he was going to get away with this bullying, and angry that a whole bunch of people were waiting for taxis but no one responded to this social injustice playing out before us.

I think what got my goat, was him repeating himself over and over that he did not want to “take responsibility” for any mishap that might happen. I thought to myself: if everyone were so afraid of lending a helping hand, there would be no semblance of a liveable world to be in. If every doctor were so afraid of making mistakes (which we all do), then no one would continue practicing medicine.

At that short moment, so many emotions, thoughts and struggles passed my head like a fleeting shower. I wanted to tell him everyone would grow old someday, that someday we might be in that wheelchair needing help. I don’t know what possessed me but instead, I then said to him in mandarin, “ You shi hou, bang zhu ren jia shi xu yao yi dian dian de xi sheng.”

Sometimes to help someone, requires a bit of sacrifice.

He went berserk. By this time, the security guard had come over because he looked as if he was about to hit me.

He drove off. I didn’t take down his driving plate because I didn’t want him to lose his license. I had made a stand for what I thought was right. I had gotten my point across. And I didn’t want him to lose his job- who knows, he might have a family to feed.

As I got into my own cab and we drove off, I then saw a cab driver driving ahead of me gesticulate his hand. In an Asian context, he had given me the third finger. It was then that I took down his license plate number.

When I got home and shared the incident with my own domestic helper, I was horrified to realize she had experienced so many similar encounters when she had sent my grandmother to the hospital in the months preceding her death. Once, she said, it was pouring so hard and she had hurt her back so badly that she could not hold my grandma’s weight alone and they needed a cab so badly but not a single taxi driver would agree to take them. Because of the prolonged pleading with a cab driver at the time and my maid’s desperation, my grandmother had wet herself on the wheelchair. Worse, because of that, the taxi driver in that encounter made a greater case for not giving them a lift.

Ah, the injustice.

On my way home, I then realized how similar I am to my mum, in spite of all our differences. When I was little, she used to stop at traffic light junctions and make my sister and I get out of the car to give little old ladies pushing pushcarts of cardboard paper fifty-dollar notes. Once, I remember, an old person got bullied in public and she went right up to the big bully and yelled him down speechless. I was only ten but the memory was etched in my head so clearly. My dad always says my mum, with her temper, isn’t perfect, but there was something in her that made him marry her. I’m not saying it’s the best way of dealing with things, but it made me aware that this ran in the family, ha.

We just can’t take injustice toward the elderly lying down.

I still have not decided whether to lodge a complaint to his cab company. But one thing for sure, since I will be giving a presentation to the department heads and Chairman Medical Board about the proposal to link Healthserve to our hospital to help needy patients, I will bring up this issue of the need for staff who can transfer patients to cabs at the taxi stands, and perhaps a hospital service to send patients home safely. There already are staff and services in place to make these things happen, but there are obviously gaps in the system which can be improved.

I realized one thing, that helping others does come at a cost. Doing surgery means risking surgical complications; lending a hand does mean possibly making a boo-boo. But at the end of the day, I do believe that trusting in God can bring one a far, far way. Helping others, really shouldn’t be so much hard work. We weren’t sure, but I believe, that God protects the righteous as we put our trust in Him.

Go on, take the risk, put yourself in someone’s shoes. If not our responsibility, then whose?