Minii…. Maranawoo…. ('Murder...)

             I was doing my surgery internship, under Dr.D.F.De S Gunawardena, at the then General Hospital Colombo. Now it is named the National Hospital of Sri-Lanka - NHSL. One night I was summoned by a ‘call-book’, from our quarters - 'Violet Cottage'- situated in Regent Street opposite the Bandaranayake Memorial Building, at about 2 am. Those days, urgent calls for doctors on night call were sent via a ‘call-boy’, who was given a book. On the book the nurse on night shift in the ward, would write a brief summary of the illness and the request to see a particular patient, who would need urgent medical attention. The date and time of the request would be there. The doctor who received it was expected to counter-sign with the date and time of receipt of the call. That memorable day, the call book was written by the nurse on duty, in our male surgical ward. In the call book she had written the name of a 70 year old patient admitted for symptoms of prostatism and mentioned that he had suddenly been found unconscious, during the nurse’s night round. I got dressed and hurried to the ward a few hundred yards away. On arrival, at about 1am, I found the old man in a side room of the ward, lying to all appearances ‘deeply unconscious’ on his bed. No amount of physical stimulation like pinching the ear lobes or nipples would waken him. I felt to see whether he had a distended urinary bladder but that was not so. My next thought was whether he was a diabetic and was in a diabetic coma. I decided to catheterize his bladder and test his urine in the ward for sugar and acetone. We had not even dreamt of an electronic ward blood sugar estimation device those days.

            The nurse brought the catheter trolley. I gloved up, cleaned the prepuce of the penis with 'savlon' and was inserting the tip of the sterile red rubber catheter into the opening in the patient's penis, when the patient took a deep breath. It was almost like a last gasp. I thought the patient was drawing his last breath. The apparent last breath turned out to be a deep inhalation of breath, following which the patient shouted in a loud stentorian voice “Minee…. Maranawoo…."(Murder…..), waking up the entire neighborhood.  He pulled out the catheter from my hands violently and threw it away got out of his bed and hurriedly tied up his sarong, covering his nakedness. Then only did we realize that there was nothing wrong with him. He had only been fast asleep.